Snow

Fluffy wet cotton balls accumulate outside the windows of my house. Rehearsal has been cancelled, and the joy of sitting here at ten o'clock still in my pajamas, when the alternative would be to slump in an auditorium chair shivering for four hours, cannot go unmentioned.

Now I sit on the red couch in my family room, prepared to face the massive amounts of homework I have to conquer. Over the last three days I spent a solid three hours just creating the physical component of my Heart of Darkness presentation. I don't think I've ever been so meticulous with a project before. The only thing that's stilting the pride I feel when I look at the finished product is the fact that I don't think there's a section on the rubric for "time and effort involving Styrofoam poster board."

No matter. Shrug it off, move forward.
More cotton balls glide and drift into light piles.
Let me track my progress with their own.

I nodded.

Now everything is different.

My Adderall has worn off.

This new-post screen has stared at me for a good ten minutes, its subtle, gray periwinkle light casting a glow on my tired face in the darkness. I honestly have nothing thoughtful or poetic to contribute tonight, and on the subject of confessions I really should be studying for an AP Gov test. But I'm not. My laptop, practically a veteran of its class at the ripe old age of four years, has somehow managed to combust its fan, which now whirs with an elegant brnnnnn for periodic sentences of fifteen or so minutes. The humming will then stop, and the room fills with the echoes of absence; sure enough, however, the fan once again resurrects its bumbly tune. The clicking of these black plastic keys does little to overpower the noise, but in many ways, what otherwise might be viewed as a distraction has become a sort of companion--granted, an electronic, non-physical one, but a companion nonetheless: almost like robotic background music.

At the same time, the brief moments of pure silence always bathe me in temporary tranquility, almost as if, when the accompaniment stops, so too does my stream of thoughts. I suppose I like both constant gray noise and momentary quiet. One lets me think without interruption or distraction; the other is my escape from everything including myself.

THINGS I NOTICED TODAY:
01. I am actually capable of perfect time management! It just requires double-late entry. My mum would tell me that punctuality is achievable under any circumstance. I know she's right, I just haven't figured out how to attain it yet.
02. Physics might just be--in fact I'm almost positive that it is--the first class that I cannot teach myself. All the studying in the world cannot seem to impound these concepts into my head. Part of me encourages total surrender--in other words, why study if it doesn't help? The other part of me smacks me upside the head and somehow always wins.
03. A boy bought a carnation at lunch today and, bored, I stole a peek at the message he wrote. Scribbled out in messy black ink were the words, "You're the reason I still take the bus. By the way, I forgive you." I hope the recipient of his note appreciates it as much as I did.
04. I am losing one of my best friends but don't know how to tell her, partly, I suppose, because I don't know how the space between us even got there.
05. I am trying to single-handedly prevent something from happening that I already know won't happen anyway. There's no logic behind this. I know there isn't. But I still feel the need to stop it in its immobile tracks.
06. Too many of the sentences I write start with the word "I." I sincerely hope this does not reflect some sort of self-obsession contained in my pysche.
07. My New Year's resolution was to floss every single day. For the first time in my life, I have not only successfully upheld a resolution but have also made it second-nature. The next time I go to CVS I have to buy floss. I've never bought floss before. Weird.
08. I miss scrapbooking. I used to do it all the time but schoolwork has piled up with the years and now I'm dozens of months behind. Facebook albums just aren't the same and I hope that anyone who says so one day discovers the magic hidden in the concrete preservation of photo albums.
09. I don't trust myself.
10. "Kindle" is trying to replace books. This makes me unbelievably sad. Part of what makes reading so joyful is the weight of the book; the feel of the page, smooth or rough with aging; the gloss of soft paper covers or the waxy sturdiness of hard linings; the ability to hold words in your hand and know that months from now they'll be in the same place, on the same page, as they were the last time you looked. Electronics are the future. But reading has a tradition of requiring two hands, and I'd hate to see that tradition fall to the wayside.
11. Cody makes me feel beautiful in a way that no other person has.
12. I love my family immensely and even when I seem indifferent or uninvolved, I hope they know that I care for them deeply and will bawl my eyes out the day I leave for college.

The laptop has once again resumed its cheerful tune, and the other internet tab labeled "AP REVIEW QUESTIONS" has been glaring at me for some time.

Diligence need only last through April 1st, or so I tell myself.

Rankin & Bass

At comp rehearsal this afternoon Sean and I were sitting on the polished wood couch, the one with the goldenrod cushions, discussing the enormous losses that come with every departing senior class, and the subsequent gains with every freshman class. Perched on the stool next to us sat Haley, who up until then had been quietly absorbing our comments, surely part of the conversation but moreso in presence than in words.

All of a sudden, her voice, with the diction that has won her praise from everyone with a decent ear, and with words, each one distinct and perfectly-formed, piped up.

"I admire you so much Sam. I really do."

No one has ever told me that before, and I don't think it could have come from a sweeter, kinder soul. As we age we are constantly reminded of our status as "role models" for our younger counterparts, but so rarely are we actively challenged and motivated to set venerable examples. It takes certain people, I think, to really encourage us to strive to be some sort of living paradigm.

Haley's that person for me.
I hope that she continues to find something within me admirable.
The reason, I realize, is because I admire her.
Everything in life, then, is a two-way street.

CSS Profile

"DEADLINE: 2/1."
I'm trying to remember if this date has come and gone.
February is 2, right?
Shit.

If the point
is to encourage
scholarship
and the chasing
of academic
endeavors
then
why
why
why
would the
deadline be
hidden in size 8
font
Times New Roman
on page 325
of the 2010
edition
College Guide?

The only thing
worse
than waiting
months
to find out
if the package
is fat
or practically
emaciated
is knowing
ahead of
time
that weight
won't be an
issue.

I'd almost
rather not go
at all.

11:56 AM - 2/4/10

I'm sitting in the Media Center

and Laura's occupying the computer to my left. She's reading an article about Michelle Obama although moments ago she quipped to me about a self-help article promising to "better your couple's communication." Self-help articles confuse me. Only words comprise them, words that perhaps constitute ideas but are so vague that heeding the advice they present would be like downing six Tylenols upon development of a paper cut. I'm in pain, therefore I need painkillers. Sometimes, yes, but ibuprofen isn't going to solve everything, and I think it's the same with "self-help" books. We're not robots and following typed instructions on how to better ourselves is not as straight-forward and condensed as rewiring a circuit or changing the batteries in a remote control.

Of course we help others because we want them to succeed.
But I think there's greater motive, at least sometimes.
Helping others betters ourselves.
We help others, therefore we are.

We help others, to know that we are good people, good people who care about people other than ourselves.
Maybe indirectly we crave the positive light that inevitably reflects upon us once committing the valiant act.
Maybe it boils down to an inherent need to convince ourselves that we aren't completely self-concerned.


Does it?

I think silence helps sometimes.
We find comfort in physical touch that reaches deeper into our souls than any manner of oral assuaging possibly can.
Words are words are words.
We use them all the time.

This blog is just words, typed out by a machine, the only human touch the pads of my fingers. There's barely a human quality here. In this way, I am most likely a hypocrite. But I'm not great at giving advice. I find it difficult to relate to people when their problems so outnumber or overshadow mine, not because I don't care but because I don't know what to say that could possibly remedy a situation I've never intimately experienced.

I am good at listening. I think everyone is, and those who aren't would be equally capable of it if they wanted to be.
I find comfort in just spilling out everything I feel, often in incoherent sentences and fragments that only make sense when I finish emptying my overloaded head. Sometimes having someone else absorb everything you feel is the best manner of self-help there is.


What if self-help books just listened?
The pages would be blank and maybe made of sponge.
And we all could relate to what they offer.

I'm probably just crazy.

Groundhog's Day (A Reflection)

I don't have much to say. I wrote two poems in school today, one during AP Gov and the other in Tarmey's class. I'm happy with both but I'm not sure how I feel about sharing them just yet. Also Alex and I had a really meaningful conversation tonight and in a few minutes I'll be closing my eyes with an even greater appreciation for him.

This is really basic and "here's-what-I-did-today"-ish but it was my day, or the parts I care to remember, and that seems good enough to me right now.

Filter

I am seeing and I am believing and for once the two are harmonious.

I wish there was more I could do to help.

Every fiber of me aches with indignation. Know that although our interactions are periodic, I sit here and make every wish at 1:37 a wish for you and your beautiful spirit.

Lament

Today I called Yale with a college admissions question because I wanted an honest answer that didn't come from a school I'm applying to. For some reason, hearing the answer I absolutely dread from a college I entirely adore would be far worse than getting the same response from one that I'm indifferent to. So I called Yale. And I was halfway through my question when the secretary of the Admissions Office said, "Okay so I'm just going to connect you to an officer..." So I sucked in my breath and waited until I heard a new voice and then I let it out for a second time, and after a good fifteen seconds of silence I heard,

"Welllllll I wouldn't consider two B+s a huge deal if you've never gotten them before...of course we will take it into consideration that your grades dropped...and there's really no excuse."

Of course there's not.
Perfection is a given, not a distinguishing attribute.
And that, my friends, is why I didn't apply to Yale.

I thanked her and hung up the phone, content at the very least with the fact that I now have one less invisible application to stress over.

Ahead flows more of you and nothing more.

I drive around and I see this road and I recognize it and I think, "Down that path lies everything from August" and I keep driving by but the thought sticks in my mind.

In a Boy's Dream

Cody played "Crash Into Me" for me on Saturday night. As he was strumming his guitar, as he was breathing and living each and every word, I rediscovered the song and the youthfulness hidden within. Even the most musically-fanatical of us are guilty of hearing, but not listening, to words now and then. Saturday I listened to this song and it lit my soul on fire and the excited sparks flew up my throat and filled my mouth until I could not resist a smile any longer. By the last "crash" I was grinning so widely that the top creases of my cheeks had started to envelop my eyes.

I hope everyone rediscovers something beautiful today.

Jigsaw

The grace and strength with which you brave each new day leaves me in complete awe of your soul. If I could effect one dream it would be to crawl inside your mind and whisper to your ears how beautiful you are. For now, let me embrace your hands in my own.

They fit perfectly and I've been looking for the missing piece of me.

My contacts hurt.

I wish I knew how to say "no" to people.

Maybe For a Day

I'd like to be the one stationary object and watch the world fly around and around and around.

1.12.10

It's actually okay.
I say this because I know you don't want it to be.

Blueferns

"Often they are mistook for insects – but they are seeds in which the whole generation sleeps confident of a future. And for a moment it is easy to believe each one has one – will become all of what is contained in the spore: will live out its days as planned. This moment of certainty lasts no longer than that; longer, perhaps, than the spore itself."

-Beloved

Honesty

All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there.

you shall above all things be glad and young

you shall above all things be glad and young
For if you’re young,whatever life you wear

it will become you;and if you are glad
whatever’s living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

whose any mystery makes every man’s
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think,may god forbid
and (in his mercy) your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies,the foetal grave
called progress,and negation’s dead undoom.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

-e.e. cummings

Others See It Too

"I was talking about time. It's so hard for me to believe in it. Some things go. Pass on. Some things just stay. I used to think it was my rememory. You know. Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it--stays, and not just in my rememory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think it, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened."

-Beloved

 Photographs fade. These albums we leave behind us won't.

Gratification

“No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way that simply joy could shake you. How loose the silk. How fine and loose and free.”

-Beloved

Everything We'll Ever Know

An uncomfortable thought hit me today as I sat in the cafeteria, one-eighth of a round formica slab, fiddling with my plastic white spoon and fulfilling my childhood need to rebel as I played with the apple sauce in its container.

Who actually hears what we say?

This past hour alone I have carried out dozens of conversations with friends and acquaintances alike. Always, there is eye contact, and a pleasant exchange of smiles, and sometimes even the echoes of a giggle reach my straining ears. There are all the signs of human interaction, and I see them and I hear them. But I have no way of knowing which parts are real and which are simply customary responses to vocal communication.

Sitting at the table, I admit my frustrations regarding my more than slightly incompetent physics teacher, and I watch as you nod, and sympathize, and agree. In the moment it feels so real, not at all fabricated but genuine. You know what I feel because you feel it too.

And now, not an hour later, I am sitting in the library, one-third of a new chain of seats, staring (mindlessly, no doubt, to anyone who throws a passing glance) at this computer screen, wondering if the connection I built with you minutes ago even happened. Of course it occurred, because I talked and you talked and we both reacted. But did you listen to me? Did you hear me deep in the pit of your stomach, or knocking against the outer walls of your head, or jumping up and down on your shoulders? Or did you simply hear me, the way you hear a response to How was your day? or the way you hear your friend tell you the story about her first kiss for the eightieth time?

Maybe our conversation was a placebo. I emerged believing in this new brick of our foundation, but you exited unconsciously snickering at the artificiality of it all.

Everyone possesses a window within themselves. The outer side, closest to the dirty and contagious atmosphere in which we live, is cramped with false connections. They push and bump against each other, trying to squeeze their way through the tiny wire squares of this screen barrier. And on the other side, so near to our privatest selves, float the few stragglers who somehow wandered off the so-beaten path and underwent this beautiful transformation. Small in number, they appear inferior to their crowded counterparts.

They are infinitesimal in size, but they travel closest to our hearts.

Empty Pages

I feel like I have nothing to say lately. My poetry has stalled and I have no idea why. Life has not stopped, so why has my ability to communicate it come to a crashing halt? I am afraid that everything that happens to me, and the way I perceive everything happening to others, is no longer good enough to share.

Why is writing such a struggle with self-satisfaction?

Demise

"And perhaps in this is the whole difference; perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible."

-Heart of Darkness

Self-Deception

Maybe if I just keep repeating it, I will believe what I am saying.

Nothing Sticks

These keys submit under the gentle pressure of my padded fingers.
I need time to think and react.

------

Today's song is "Stay" by Katie Thompson.

I could give you my heart, I could hand you my soul
and you could do what you want with my dreams.
And I'll take you so far,
just as long as you know it's only change for what I need.

Thoughts

As long as I'm engaged with others and living outside of myself, I'm absolutely fine. It's only when I am left alone that I crawl back inside and let every little thing wear away at my exterior.

Child of the Universe

And with invisible fingers he reached toward me and lifted my face. Buried truths swarmed his invisible body, uprooting themselves, cracking the pavement which moved underneath us but upon which we stood, static. I watched as he dodged the torment of his own realities. My own hands furled into concrete fists of anger, and every atom in this space, each tiny unjust particle, I felt. They pricked my skin, startled my eyelids to shutter open and remain, transfixed, on the horrors I could not affect.

And somewhere, a few feet away, I caught in the sere shadows a glimpse of his pride. It lay in his footprint, crushed.

ABCB

A line popped into my head today as I was clacking away on these plasticky keys, typing up a critique that I lost all inspiration for long before I even started. A line popped into my head and then another...and for once, they rhymed, and being a free-verse nut, this both scares me and excites me. They're still flitting around in my head, these two lines, except I think they've undergone cell division because now I'm up to four. I'm itching to write but I think I'm going to let this one develop on its own. My heart hasn't pumped quite so energetically in a very long time.

Ten Prints

Hands are the most beautiful extensions of our inner selves that I have ever known or seen.

Four Hours Ago

The stars faded.
At least--
they did
for me.

Atlas

I am at home today, taking a mental break from the feverish intensity of school. I don't like to admit when stress, versus me, has won the battle. Does anyone like to admit their weaknesses? Surely we do, but do we want to? Sometimes I feel like we all experience the tiniest twinge of hesitation before we plummet to our own personal depths in very public ways.

We are only people and this world around us did not evolve to be a burden on our shoulders.

Even Atlas had to shift positions now and then to bring his aching back relief.
Today I shift.
Tomorrow I'll resume position.

Roadblock

How can I ask for
help when I push my problems
behind closed gray doors?

10:15 AM -- 12/15/09

365 Days

It's strange to think back to where I was exactly one year ago. The fourteenth of December: my parents had already sent out the moving vans (which, unfortunately, arrived in Holden the evening of the ice storm) and now, it being 6:00PM on a Sunday evening with the apparent possibility of school the following day (in retrospect.....yah no), I was scooped up from my best friend's house and unwillingly shuttled two hours north to my new "home." Luckily school was cancelled until the new year, and so I passed the vacation time exploring these new, foreign mazes of streets and the labyrinth that was a new highway system, a new town center, a new city. Everything was new, different, unfamiliar.

It's a funny thing about "new"--materialistically we crave untouched, unspoiled perfection. With change, though, we cower in fear. I don't excuse myself from this generalization; I'd be lying if I did. My first day of school at Wachusett was absolutely dreadful. Nothing at all horrible happened. But what made it so incredibly painful was that nothing happened. I came to school, I walked, lost, down the hallways, I entered classrooms, took my seat--once or twice realizing that the cryptic writing on the board was not, indeed, math but was instead (for some inexplicable and cruel reason) Spanish--and come lunchtime I would have completely dissolved into the tiled lineoleum floors had it not been for the wonderfully-cheerful junior in my pre-calc class who let me sit with her and thus performed one of the greatest acts of kindness ever known to man or, at the very least, to me.

My very first friend here is now my best friend. I am lucky in that fact, extraordinarily so. She is clever, beautiful, talented, funny, charming, and sweet beyond words. The few friends I made in the following weeks were all so different, so unbelievably singular in everything they did and said and conveyed, and every day I would marvel at the variety of people I met. I would sit at lunch, in classrooms, at drama rehearsal--I would sit and watch these humans, these beautiful humans who were kind enough to invite me in. They carved a little place for me in their lives. One day I will thank them formally.

I don't think we thank people enough, myself included.

Thank you to my first friend, and my second one as well.
Thank you to the boy who needed me to run lines with him and shyly asked me to help and actually remembered my name so that he could talk to me at lunch, and thank you to him for becoming my best boy friend.
Thanks to Mr. McTigue for pairing me up with one of the most intelligent, gorgeous, and spirited girls I have ever met. He probably has no idea, but he introduced me to my other best friend that day.
Thank you to the oboe player that willingly corresponded with me before I even moved here.
Thank you to the girl with two first names, for giggling with me and always checking in.
Thank you to the boy, the boy who is so completely comfortable with who he is, for accompanying me to prahm, and for forgetting the past and sharing an enlightening present.

There will never be enough thank yous, and surely I've missed people.
One day I'll fill in all the blanks.
I promise.

Reality

"It's called The American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

--George Carlin

I Cannot Break This Habit

It's that word followed by the smile that gets me every time.

Mr. Erban

Today I had my interview with Brown. It went well, just like everyone (except for me) believed it would. Our conversation was pleasant, and, even better, it was real. Strange, then, that all I can remember now is the magazine he was reading when I walked in the door, and the sweet tingle of Sweets 'N Java white hot chocolate on my tongue.

I'm hoping this is a good sign.
Mostly, I suppose, because I don't know what else it would be.

Mirage

"...No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone."

-Heart of Darkness

Untitled

I’m used to rich brown eyes,
for their sparkle had the ability to make me melt,
and I willingly gave myself up
and drowned into those chocolate pools
of sweet sin.
But blue eyes have engulfed me,
lakes of crystal-clear water
               that capture me as the tide
               comes in
and strand me on the sand
      when the shoreline retreats.
And I am treading water,
unsure whether to hold on until
      brown eyes rescue me,
or give in and become
      one with the sea.

10:55 PM -- 4/15/08 (feelings transcend time)

Target

This is not how it was supposed to turn out.

I can't sleep.

My cheeks hurt from smiling.

P.S. Happy 18th celebration of the day you came out of your mum, Bryan! <3

Two Months

I feel like many adults are more scared of living than I am. They hesitate at taking chances, cringe at risks, deny any thoughts of rebellion or betrayal or, most simply, change. Are they so content in their little boxy cages that the tiny iron bars have melded and forged together to fuse into solid, opaque walls that reject light and keep everything in the dark? This level of comfort has created pseudo-security. They are safe within their own dull confines merely because no one prods at them any longer. There are no threats. Danger has tip-toed onward, irritated with the amount of time it has expended and the meager results that follow in its wake. Haggard in its appearance, it stumbles around, scavenging for scraps of courage. It does not devour out of pleasure; it consumes to heighten. When Risk and Courage meet and combine, beautiful, beautiful things happen. When Risk and Courage combine, Growth bursts everywhere.

I hope we don't all lose our sense of adventure as we age.
Risk and Courage, on their own, reap nothing more than stale footprints.

I don't know what I want.

Does anyone?

Panic

Powerschool has officially ruined my day.
I'm so glad inanimate objects that don't even exist as something tangible that I can touch have the ability to cause me so much stress.
I think I'm growing gray hairs.
On a side note, I wish they were white.

The Kid With the Hat Six Tables Away

I was sitting on one of the plastic seats at the lunch table today, its surface smooth but irritating at the same time (contradictions seem to rule my life lately), and I was picking at my sandwich, because for some reason sandwiches only taste good when I'm at home on the weekends eating one alongside the rest of my family, and I let my eyes wander around the cafeteria. Here were all of these people, hundreds of them, close in age and location but truthfully little else (intelligence, maturity or frank lack thereof, compassion...but who's paying attention anymore anyway).  And here I am, one among them, and we're just sitting in these seats, planted down in this mammoth space like cultures of bacteria in a petri dish, just sitting here, sitting sitting talking and it comes so naturally, it comes without thought or question. Every day when the bell rings, our legs kick into action and simultaneously throughout the school thousands of feet lift and start a mindless walk toward the cafeteria. Because a bell rang. Because somehow, during our years in educational institutions, we have been taught to respond to cattle calls. What if, when that shrill note that always seems longer than it did last block/this morning/yesterday afternoon, what if when that wavelength reached our ears we absorbed it and that was all? No gut physical reaction. We would just stay, remaining as we were. In the distance, teachers would cry foul. "Rebellion."

Imagine.
We come to school to learn to think for ourselves, but every day we are our own paradoxes.
In this I am equally guilty.

Thinking Again

01. Frosted Flakes are good. Just plain good.
02. Yesterday on the radio I heard a Christmas song about a child's immense longing to receive a hippopotamus from Santa Claus. Suddenly my day seemed forty-thousand times brighter.
03. "We don't judge the bull, we only celebrate our good fortune."
04. Stores no longer carry old-fashioned bottle openers. This makes me sad.
05. I got a letter in the mail today. A real letter.
06. The 1-10 smiley-face pain chart at the hospital needs to be reexamined. If a 6 is severe pain, why is the smiley face merely making an "eh" face?
07. I wish more people hung mistletoe.
08. Sweaters and plaid and v-necks make me happy.
09. Currently my head feels like an anvil came and crushed my skeleton.
10. I think I killed ten trees writing the Thanksgiving-break syntax paper for Tarmey.
11. Spray paint + plastic frisbee = unpleasant smell.
12. Good morning? Good night.

(dis)Connected

Today I woke up with body intact, lying on this mattress, all of me here but all of me missing. I got up. My head swooned somewhere far away, maybe it rolled off into the back of my closet(I wouldn't know)or maybe it slipped behind the headboard. Either way its screeches, while far away, were clear so clear clear clear. The clock read 6:11 but all I saw was goback:tobed and so not wanting to argue with time(time always wins)I scooped myself up(my head could wait)and fell back into bed.

My head joined up with me just in time to process the words "sinus infection" before once again sliding away.
At least my fingers still work(they're tired).

1.5 mm

What lies beneath our skin is far more important than what appears above it.
Skin itself holds untold secrets.
Everybody looks above or below, and so these unknowns remain hidden.
Search within, pierce the cell foundations.
This casing which we live inside is beautiful.

Briarpatch

It's nice to all be home right now.

Jimmy

Tonight at roughly 7:45 PM I discovered how it feels to know that there are people watching out for you, every second of every minute, for no other reason than that they care about you and you are important to them. Tonight at roughly 7:45 PM, my friends told the waitstaff at the Texas Roadhouse it was my birthday (it wasn't) and asked them to sing Happy Birthday to an extremely grumpy me. Tonight at roughly 7:55 PM, the waitstaff at the Texas Roadhouse came up to our table, forced me to sit on a riding saddle (I sat side-saddle, as all English ladies should) and wave a napkin in the air. Tonight at roughly 7:57 PM, I retreated from my temporary brushed-leather prison and scooted back into the booth, face red from both humiliation and amusement. I was embarrassed, so completely embarrassed.

"Sam are you crying?!"

I was. Not because I was mortified, not because I had laughed myself to tears. Because two girls hold me close enough in their hearts to do anything for me.

I love you both.

Strawberry Blonde

I love my sister.

Can Anybody Hear Me?

Today my teacher remarked on the self-plight of blogs. They are, he claimed, nothing more than dim cries for attention, for someone, anyone, to know that we exist. ("I'm here! I'm here!") There was a fair share of les bloggers in the room at the time, and a part of me is curious to know what they were thinking, listening to these words.

Certainly some blogs are nothing more than doldrum expirations of time. Clicking the "next" button on the toolbar at the top of my page is a fairly strong reassurance of this fact because usually I see five consecutive pages of Spanish advertising...cool.

Yet I feel like the ones I read are not meant as evidence, as proofs of existence. I am aware of the writers, keenly alert to them when I see them in school or on the street or here or there or both. Sometimes--and I'm sure this sounds, in some degree, lame--sometimes the best part of my day is sitting down and placing myself beside these people, reading what they have to say, absorbing their thoughts, thoughts which are pure and raw and beautiful. Their words have meaning, if not to everyone then at the very least to me.

Sometimes I secretly hope that there is a person who sits down at night ready to catch a glimpse of my mind.

Faust

I'm trying to write a script for my drama class.
I keep thinking to myself, This should be easy.
I write poetry all the time. It pours over my school work, leaks onto my hands, even sticks to the rubber soles of my shoes.
The theatre is my second home. I've read dozens and dozens of scripts this past summer alone.
I keep staring at the notebook in front of me, thinking to myself, Why isn't this easier?
I want to write about something real, something in my life.
I understand it best.
Why is it that everything true seems incomprehensible on paper?
No one believes the truth anymore.

Humble Pie

I wonder what it would be like to put my shoes on both at the same time.

MC 18

I've been moving up and down today, not really in my mood so much as my level of intensity, which consistently fluctuates between this enormous passion for living and then this quiet reserve where all I want to do is people-watch. At the moment I'm at a standstill between the two, anticipating the switch perhaps not eagerly but certainly with an almost shy level of expectancy.

I feel everything right now. I feel everything on this elevated plane, at an altitude where I no longer see people and instead I see walking frames of distinct emotions. Yesterday I was frustrated and I looked at my friends and all I could picture through my narrowed eyes was heat, this red energy that they had no control over because I was creating it, because I was so embittered that their smiles seemed like jeering pokes, because I felt pricked by their ability to laugh and joke and jest while simultaneously I stood trapped in my inability.

Yesterday I watched a girl and a boy walk down the hallway together. Their fingers tapped, flirting with the idea of partnership, and yet these appendages seemed more to me like incongruous cogwheels. The pegs fit mostly due to pressure, to force so heavy that manipulation sets in and everything is faked, like when you tell yourself that the two puzzle pieces you just joined actually do fit together and that the minuscule slivered crescent moon of blank space lying in between is intentional. Their fingers were incongruous, not with each other but with the standards set for them by the bodies they inhabited. Yesterday I watched this girl and this boy, this immaculate pair, travel down the hallway, their backs to me, faces toward things they don't know or don't understand or can't possibly anticipate merely because a combination of youthful naïveté and inherent uncertainty blocked the window ahead. Yesterday I watched them and I felt love in the purest form, in a way that is unlike any love that has consumed me before. I looked at them and I felt their need to be near another person, their desire to have something, someone to walk alongside toward an unsettled future. I felt the comfort and security of an extra set of eyes and of an extra body and of an extra voice. The French have one-hundred and fourteen variations of the word "love." Yesterday I felt all of them.

Everyone is absolutely beautiful lately.

8:58 PM

One thousand times may not be enough.

Shrugged Off

Why is it that sometimes we feel so incredibly lonely but to reach out to people seems like the last thing we should do? Maybe it's because every now and then, when we extend our frail, thinning hands, hoping desperately that stronger, warmer fingertips return the gesture, all we feel, all we perceive, all we get is a sharp, obvious push away.

Why is it that some of the people we need most are the very same people who make our lives miserable?
In this, we are all hypocrites.

Close Encounters

Today at the EcoTarium I was almost attacked by a screech owl. Kathy, the trainer, was putting her back in her cage and she latched onto the door and went flying across the room, straight toward my unprotected head. Meanwhile I freaked out and ducked my head, shielding Carrot Top, the Eastern Box Turtle I was working with, from this flying fluffball. Luckily she skimmed over my head and landed her notched talons on the glass snake case a few feet in front of me.

In other news, I think the turtles have become a bit too comfortable around me. Dr. Evil peed on me 8 times, and his mum, Notch, peed on me once. Like mother, like son?

Furthermore, I miss you.

Every Morning

I want to tell you today that I love you.

Paper Clip Beauty

Every morning, my hands slip into their accouterments. Five bands of silver, one of gold: six rings that circle, surround, enclose my thin fingers. Each has immeasurable significance, possessing a story as beautiful and individual as the printed fingertips they slide past each morning. Around my left hand slide five bracelets, settling in a congregation just below the base of the palm, at the nape of my wrist. These, too, carry histories all their own. The Livestrong on my right hand, its bright yellow rubber a stark contrast to my pale skin, first attached itself in eighth grade and has remained a constant presence ever since.

To others, the jewelry I wear is simply that: pieces of metal hardware, rings and bracelets meant purely for decoration. Yet these ornaments are appendages, extensions of my fingers. They have intertwined with the hands of another, felt the warmth and silent love emanating between a gentle squeeze. They have experienced the rough and tumble of Willson Osborne's "Rhapsody," jerked up and down allowing notes to pass through hollowed wood and burst into the colored tones of a contemporary masterpiece. They have gripped thousands of pencils, hundreds of pens, contributed to the words that align and realign themselves into stanzas, into poetic expansions of myself. My bracelets have hugged and have danced. My rings have tickled and wiped away tears. Every night, these pieces part ways with my hands, temporarily separating their existence from my body, until the next day, when I lengthen and extend myself through their metal forms once more.

As I Step to the Edge and I Sign With a Kiss

Today in homeroom we all had to fill out Senior Superlatives. EW. They're fun, just because they're fun. (If that makes any sense at all...it makes sense to me at least.) But superlatives are also....so contrived, so artificial. Catie Kollins put it the best. She said, "It's the equivalent of saying, 'Well, you, you, and you all have pretty eyes, but YOUR eyes are the prettiest.'" Can you even gauge the prettiness of eyes? Tyler Groll and Alex Nowak both have beautiful blue eyes. As I see it, I could vote either way: either way, my vote would go to someone with blue eyes. (No, that sentence was not redundant, I swear.) And anyway, I think part of what makes eyes so alluring is the connection we feel when we look into them. If I was voting based on that, based on the eyes that I really, really love, the person I'd pick has brown eyes. Which are beautiful, in a deep-chocolate sort of way, but not in the stereotypical, "ohmigawd yo' eyes ah soooo bluuuuuu" way.

Maybe my rambling makes no sense. I really have nothing against superlatives, nor am I bitter about them at all. I just...think they're funny. Years from now, all one will be is an extra picture in the yearbook.


Today's song of the day is "Man On the Moon" by Mario Spinetti, although anything by him is worth listening to. He's a graduate of NYU and he has the most amazing voice, it's so pure and very ethereal and his lyrics are ingenuous and I just love him. 

"It said 'Let our nation rise'
I'm a victim to prose in that…
Send my love to the spoon and cat
It said 'Let our nation rise'
Here's to you, here's to solitaire
Here's to star-fishing in the air."

Hazard

Some truths become
more apparent
with time.

This one has
continually
sprouted
but I've managed
to push it
down
down
down
time after time
and time
again.

Ignoring it
will no longer
suffice.

I stumble over its desire
to be noticed,
twist my ankle
from its gnarled
root
that claws its way
through the soil
and up
across
underneath my feet.

Perhaps if I accept
this weed
its presence
cannot harm me:

I don't know how
to get out of
my own
way.

11/11/09 -- 12:50 AM

In the Air

It smells like Fall. I can't even describe the smell, but everyone knows it and it's here and I love it I love it I love it. Right now the trees are dropping their leaves in preparation for winter. Right now the trees are burning, flaming bright red and orange and yellow, screaming out to us, Hello, we're dying once again. Life's ironies never cease to amaze me. In their final hours each year, when fire emanates from every branch and whisks at our feet as we make our way down the leafy streets, at this point right before temporary death, trees are more beautiful than any green vibrancy could ever hope to be.

Spin Again

I wish life was as easy as its boardgame counterpart.

Inflation

"Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked."

-Battle Royal

Glow Worm

Last night was the official first White Hot Party. Alex and I spent months getting ready for it and it finally came and it was amazing! I am so incredibly proud of everything. The music was great, the lights worked perfectly, everyone glowed and danced and just had incredible fun.

Last night was the happiest I've been since school started.

Maybe I should rave more often.

Preparation

"There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing.”

-The Grapes of Wrath

Drift Thoughts

Today I really tried to begin "inviting" people into my life. It's a tough surface to break and a deep distance to penetrate, but I'm determined to get through it. There is no reason why my life, my love, needs any sort of cap or limit.

Currently I am supposed to be writing a research essay on pinhole cameras, which I actually happen to find fascinating since I was first introduced to one in August. The first pinhole camera was actually invented by the same Scottish chap who invented the kaleidoscope, which I think is the coolest conincidence ever. In any case, I'm itching to build a pinhole camera of my own. (Cue me looking for an oatmeal can to tear apart, then allowing Doubt to scream into my ear, "You're not smart enough!" and back away snickering as I sigh and place the container back on the cabinet shelf.) I'm not sure why I always place these roadblocks in front of myself, because I know if I thought about it I probably definitely could make a pinhole camera, and how truly wonderful would that be? But... I don't know. Physics is a tough concept for me to grasp. I just cannot seem to wrap my mind around it. It's too.....huge.

Anyway, I'm supposed to be writing an essay on the structure and functions of pinhole cameras. I'd much rather sift through the pages upon virtual pages of pinhole photographs that keep occurring on my Google results page. The things people have captured without even using a lens astound me. Science is brilliant, which maybe sounds redundant but truly, positively, I feel like these theories and concepts aren't theories and concepts but just these fantastic results, these fantastic THINGS sitting in front of me, surrounding me, 190,000,000 miles away from me on the other side of the planet. Taking them apart so we understand them is an honorable mission, and one I don't challenge. But for me, personally, I appreciate science as this abstract marvel of a thing.

Needless to say I haven't written my essay yet. I did go to the library to check out some books on pinhole cameras (mostly for my own personal interest when--IF--I find a spare moment to actually read something of my own volition), but the Gale Free had none. Maybe I'm one of the few people who frequent the non-fiction section, but the basement is my favorite part of the library and sadly it lacks books on so many amazing topics. If I had money I would throw it at them (figuratively-speaking, though literally throwing it at them could be entertaining) and encourage them to buys books on composting and books about pinhole cameras and all of the Rod McKuen volumes they can get their hands on.

I am seriously considering closing the Microsoft document I've had open for the last two hours, which has barely any writing save a few abstract phrases and snippets of information. The depth of field is infinite, but optical blurring can occur: it just doesn't depend on object distance. Out of context, essay aside, forgetting physics altogether... that is absolutely beautiful.

I wish I could write about science in exactly the manner I feel. Unfortunately there seems to be little room in physics for flowery ponderings on concrete knowledge.



On another note... I accidentally stumbled upon this blog today. I can't read it (despite years of Spanish it never stuck), but I don't think words are needed. The image alone made me laugh so hard. Obscurity is the most humorous thing to me.

If You Never Say Your Name Out Loud to Anyone, They Can Never, Ever Call You by It

There are certain people I see every day in school that I never, ever talk to. Or, if I do, our conversations are brief, fleeting--moreso a passing word or answers to questions than anything else. Every day I see them, every day in the hall in the cafeteria in the parking lot in the gym. You'd think with so much regularity there might be an actual connection.

Sometimes I want so badly for there to be one. Even if we have nothing "in common," we have in common those quick, passing moments, and surely isn't that enough?

Why is it so much harder to get to know someone once you've known them for a while? That doesn't make sense, but I guess what I mean is why, once you've been acquainted with someone just by coincidentally sitting diagonally across from them in class or meeting once because she's the friend of your friend, is it so infinitely harder to become friends? Maybe we think the reason we're not friends with these people is because they don't want to be friends with us. I feel this all the time, like some unexplainable insecurity on my own part inhibits me from even testing the waters.

I think, sometimes, we feel limited by our friends, maybe not directly by them but certainly by the little bubble or aura or orb or sphere or whatever shape I mean, certainly by this casing that surrounds our comfortable group. When we have friends with us, it seems an infinitesimal issue that we extend our branches. Yet when we know no one in a class, we reach out to that maybe-someone sitting next to us and remember how easy it is to invite people into our lives.

I want to invite these people into my life. No reservations, no R.S.V.P.s, no prerequisites.
Just....come on in. My door is OPEN.

Money Money Money

College confuses me.
I hope I'm not the only one.

On Having Finally Completed the College Application Process

A human brain can only stretch to hold so much knowledge at once, though one may well argue that not all brains are created equal, and I would like to believe that my own brain is flexible. I recognize, too, the distinct difference between what I truly do not know and what I simply don't understand. I don't understand Snell's Law, despite the fact that its formula (n1sinθ1 = n2sinθ2!) has embedded itself into memory. I don't understand why the letter "E" was overlooked in the development of the modern grading system, but I know for a fact that letter grades move directly from a D to an F.

I am not scared of what I don't understand. Some of it I question and seek to reinforce, some of it I allow to rest unobtrusively in some lower layer of my mind.

What I don't know, however, intimidates me.
I don't even know everything I don't know.

I do not know why I instinctively dislike being alone. I do not know why I am afraid of clowns, or why, when surrounded by 50 bandmates dressed up as my fear personified, I begin to shake and have to close my eyes to prevent tears from betraying my façade of calm. I do not know why burnt Cheez-its taste infinitely better than regular ones, or why I have always put my socks on before my pants, or why, for some reason, I am far more talented at parking a vehicle to my left than to my right. I do know, from trial and error, that this is truly unarguable, but I truly do not know why.

I don't know why my current performance in Topics Calculus stems mostly from my teacher's skill, despite the fact that I know I am intelligent and I have always displayed a certain aptitude with numbers, but I recognize that the concepts thrown at me on any given day would fly right past my head were it not for the man standing at the front board.

I do not know the Muffin Man.

I do not know why poetry flows within me, through me, from me as easily as does the alphabet from a proud kindergartner. I do not know why I love so freely and unconditionally. I do not know why this choice to live with an open heart has led to as much hurt as it has. I do not know why I trust everyone without precedent.

I don't know what my future holds, and I doubt that the fortune teller situated off the highway ten minutes from my house knows, either. I don't know when I will die, and I honestly don't know whether I would want to know if I could know. I don't know if everyone has a soul mate, and, supposing everyone does, I don't know if I will ever find mine. Maybe he was that boy from that passing car on July 4th. Maybe he was. I don't know.

I do not know if someone found the message in a bottle that I so dutifully set afloat seven years ago. I do not know if someone will ever find the time capsule my sister and I buried eight years ago before we moved from Pembroke to Duxbury.

I do not know how to read minds, and so I promise not to attempt to read yours.

I don't know if a package of essay questions is truly an adequate representation of me as a person, but I also don't know any other way of expressing myself to a college through the U.S. Postal Service.

I don't know where I will get into college, and I don't know what colleges will reply to my obese manila folder with an anorexic envelope whose contents reject my diversity.

I do not know any of these things, but I do know that I feel forever more passionate, spontaneous, and alive among these unknowns.

I do not know how to explain myself.
But I do know I am a certainty among uncertainties.

He's back.

I've never been more relieved than in that first moment.

Moses

We always said that you weren't fat,

just that there was more of you to love.

My own love knew no bounds.

I refuse to believe you are gone for good.

Please surprise me.

Come home.

Here Lies the Rant I Promised Not to Give

Right now I am itching to post an evil spiel about how frustrating it is to spend over 4 hours constructing an argument on a topic I find completely absorbing, and then share this fascination with my peers in a debate where I almost effortlessly present my side, only to find that, for some inexplicable reason or another, my standard of excellence is apparently comparable to my teacher's idea of a D.

What? I want to scream right now. I could just let 'er rip. Honestly, truly, sincerely, I DON'T GET IT.

I am sick of spending the majority of my life slaving over school work. I am sick of being compared with other people when the fact that I am not the same as them, the fact that I am different, is the very reason why such comparisons should not happen. I am sick of people telling me that grades don't matter because they think that I live and breathe for As. Do they realize that the very reason I feel such pressure to succeed is because they toss around their own grades as if earning that perfect score comes as easily as a blinking eyelid? I am sick of it.

A person is not measurable with any form of scale or number or letter or quantitative value.
A person is not measurable by how well they stack up against the paradigm of excellence.

There is no paradigm of excellence. Stop beating me to pieces about it, because it does not exist.
I've reached my breaking point.

Constellations

Today I found the Little Dipper freckled onto my arm.
The stars are closer than we think.

Reduction

I don't want to go to work tomorrow.
I don't want to go to work.
I don't want to go.
I don't want to.
I don't want.
I don't.

11:55 PM -- 10/24/09

Truth

As long as I keep my eyes closed, I stay happy.

This Will Only Hurt A Little

Soooooooo I am working off of 2.5 hours of sleep, which should technically be this huge outrageous hardship. How can I possibly be awake right now with such little sleep?! I've found that it's really not that hard. Slowly, steadily, school has robbed me of more and more of my time. I shouldn't say robbed, because I really do love school. At the same time, though, I feel completely and irrevocably possessed by this place. All I do is wake up, eat, go to school, pass in homework, take tests, receive more homework, eat lunch, endure more pointless busy work, and eventually get in my car and drive home at some point in the afternoon. I do find satisfaction with reliable constants, but this 30-hour-a-week monotony I simply cannot stand anymore. Part of me wants to scream--to my teachers, to my classmates, to no one in particular in a mostly-empty hallway--There is so much more to me than this.

I am a writer. I am an actress. I am a musician. I love nature. I feel compassion and live life with an open heart. I enjoy grocery shopping and burnt Cheez-its, and while maybe these last two are slightly more irrelevant, they're still true, and I still can't get past how frustrated I am with this beautifully-refurbished prison I'm forced to operate within.

Sometimes I wish school was all talk, all learning, all sponge-absorbing knowledge. Instead we have essays, critiques, term papers, debates, projects, presentations, tests, quizzes, quests, tizzles, midyears. Grades. What are grades even, really, when you think about them? Who came UP with these standards? Why can't an F be fantastic and an A be abysmal? Why is 100 the preferred number for everything? Screw nice, neat "percentages," why can't grades be based out of 174? I don't even know what the unit would be there but in any case why not? Why why why why WHY?

Generally I see no dangers in thinking, but this has gotten ridiculous. I am on brain OVERLOAD and relatively soon I'm just going to combust. I'll be sitting in AP Lit, or doodling in Physics, or doing I-don't-even-care-what in Topics, and my head will just explode. From knowledge, from unnecessary facts that contribute nothing to who I am as a person now and who I will be in the future, from constant fear of examinations and time limits and due dates and the dreaded red pen with x's and cross-outs.

Here's the worst part: last weekend I was at a drama rehearsal, and, as the female understudy, was juggling three different scripts and attempting to write down every single stage blocking direction for all 7 female roles. Halfway through the second act, I turned to Dan Gentile and I said, completely unaffected, completely seriously,

"Sometimes I just wish I could go into a coma, a temporary coma, and pass through these horrible weeks and when I wake up, everyone will have been so concerned about my having been in a coma that they will tell me, 'Oh Sam, don't worry about that huge critique you missed! You dont have to make up that test either,' and I will evade all of these exhausting responsibilities and just be in general much happier."

Reading that I'm sure you're probably commenting to yourself about what a horrible thing that is to say, and how insensitive of a person I am for saying it. But sometimes I really do think that having an ON/OFF switch under my control would be the most amazing thing in the world.

I know we come to school to expand our knowledge. But these are the most unbearable growing pains I've ever had to endure.

The Lost Boy

Your Peter Pan suit

stole the remaining fragments

of your innocence.

-------

I wrote this haiku almost two years ago. The occupant of that magic outfit has left my life interminably, and for the longest time, without his knowledge, I suffered under his clenched grip. I struggled for almost two years, ever since his initial departure. Thinking about that stuns me. I would laugh and point fun at my own childish refusal to let go but for the fact that I had no idea at the time what I was even holding on to. TWO YEARS. This summer I finally pulled free of his burning grasp, and left the world of adolescent daydreams behind, promising myself that from now on, I'd approach love with a level head. I promised to keep my wrists far out of the reach of any hands attached to mendacious bodies. This summer I celebrated the end of two years of intermittent misery. This summer I embraced once more the truth that I choose to live with an open heart. I have never been happier, with arms wide open, than I was less than two months ago.

Somehow he too seized my arm.

I do not want to be back in Neverland, but I cannot escape.

Pixie dust, too, is hard to come by.

Framingham Station

The minute things come into focus, they retract and blur and indistinguish themselves once more. We find ourselves in constant battles to analyze everything. We feel this incessant need to understand each moment of our lives, to pinpoint all parts of ourselves, and even that which does not belong to us, even this void, falls victim to constant scrutiny.

Why are we unable to let things go, allow whatever forces that be to govern our futures and trust that each day fell upon us because it was meant to?

Whether cherished or repudiated when we turn our lights out at night, this day existed.

--- ------

Every time I see those three syllables (five, when expanded fully), my stomach falls out my butt.

I realize that is the exact opposite of eloquence, but there's nothing eloquent about how I feel. Unrequited love sucks. Sucks sucks sucks. Like a vacuum cleaner.

Tonight I embrace all of literature's cliché metaphors for love.
I'm starting to think I've turned into a cliché myself.
Please, somebody save me from banality.

Picture My Face On a Milk Carton

I'm worried I've gotten lost.
I know I need time to find myself.
But minutes pass, I stand idle, and outside of myself I slip farther away.

-----------------------------------------------

"The point of their intersection, together with his soul, glided upwards along an endless path."

The Defense

10:12 PM

Life right now is good.

#2 Lead

I spent the entirety of lunch yesterday editing a college essay for a friend. With pencil in hand, I devoured the words much more steadily than I did my lunch, and what became most enthralling was how immersed I was. All the noise of the mammoth cafeteria shrank to this minuscule decibel until finally the laughter, screaming, voices didn't register any longer: cacophony entered one ear, and there it stayed, unable to pass out the other. When this thought occured to me once the bell rang, and all of the volume rushed back to torment my eardrums, I realized how few are the things that absorb me, entirely and without my immediate knowledge. Theatre, poetry...editing. Editing?

Sometimes I wonder if my love for editing, if my obsession with reading other people's writing and offering my opinions, seems strange and rude. For sure, some probably think so. But what if, just imagine, what if with each little tick mark, every crossed out word and suggestion for revision and circled phrase followed with-- I love this! [smiley face] --I did not detract or destruct, but inserted a part of myself into it?

I believe all writing blends together. The most beautiful collections of words owe themselves to unnumbered minds.

I'll Eat You Up, I Love You So

Last night I saw "Where The Wild Things Are." I've been wanting to see it for months, mostly because of the soundtrack (which reminds me so very much of Sigur Ros!). I'll admit I was hesitant, slightly afraid that the silver screen could not do this book justice. But it was absolutely beautiful, because for me it was like a family portrait. Life in my house is turbulent, moreso than the average family. Carol reminded me of my younger sister, with frequent mood swings and random burstings into fits. At one point, K.W. says of Carol, "He doesn't mean to do it. He just loves everyone so much." It could have been my mum speaking about my sister. I burst into tears.

A ten-sentence children's book has morphed into a sincerely profound metaphor for the one thing we all have in common: love, and its ability to at once hurt and inspire.

It's October 15th.

And it's snowing.
What?

Mother Nature has way too much fun with her job.
=)

I Wish I Were A Pinball Wizard

Yes. I am having "one of those days," one of those days. The problem here is that I really cannot articulate why or how today sucked, nor can I justify it. I love school. I need the social environment, and I find all of my classes engrossing, and (knock on wood--my one superstitious vice) I seem to be doing generally well. I have no idea what's wrong here. Maybe nothing is.

But then I come home from school and all of these worries, all of these fears arise, these tiny little stressballs that spiral through my veins--up my arms, down my legs, round and round the pit of my stomach--like cold metal pieces in a pinball game. I've lost control of my own internal arcade. I'm no longer the high scorer. I don't know whether to be embarrassed or to be accepting or to resolve to try my thumbs at it once more.

I can feel the ball ricochet up, down, and sideways: physics is incomprehensible to me regardless of how much I read the textbook and study the messy, unclear diagrams; I finished everything "college"--except for my supplemental essays--this summer and yet even with all of that preparation (which was mostly to avoid AP work, go figure) I now find myself behind? [I'm more afraid I've lost the motivation]; my impending English critique makes me want to resume my preteen habit of nail-biting, and the only thing currently keeping me from doing so is a combination of hair-pulling and fear of the Swine flu; and my sleeping habits, so meticulously sculpted and perfected to a regimen during the summer months, have finally caved in to the grueling demands of school, and as a result my body seems to be consistently heavy from exhaustion.

I have so much love pulsing within me and I'm completely incapable of sharing it with the people I truly want to.

Just for once I'd like to win a round of my own inner contest.

Scene

SETTING: The family room. It's the time of day where the natural light streaming through the windowpanes provides sufficient brightness, and as a result all the light switches, which when upturned trigger blinding explosions of harsh artificial shine, remain "OFF." GIRL sits on the couch, the one by the windows, her body sharing equally both sofa cushions, her back slumped deep into the pillows. She cradles a laptop upon her thighs, her feet turned inward as if ready to join forces and catch in their embedding anything that may potentially fall downhill. No sound, save the gentle murmur of the gas fireplace as it emits welcomed heat. She is alone but for her sole feline companion, though one may successfully argue that cats, in all their self-absorption, provide little in the way of camaraderie.

Currently GIRL, still seated, stares fixated at a spot on the opposite wall, in the middle of the large portrait where the light from outside casts a reflective glare on the glass casing. Only the window blinds are visible in this expedient mirror, and their monotonous, stacked lines attract her absentminded gaze. It becomes clear she is thinking, mulling rather tremendously over some idea, some situation, some encounter that has caught her in a grip, emphatically inescapable until thought has made its full course.

She shifts her feet, drawing them up from the floor and settling them, crossed, on top of the wooden table. Her back sinks lower into the cushions.

GIRL's lips part ever so slightly and begin to silently articulate one word, two words, three, four, ten, fifteen. Her mouth repeats this exercise once more. Then again. There passes another bout of tranquil reflection. Suddenly, her lips resume form and make one last effort to express this phrase, this wonderful, strange phrase implanted in her memory courtesy of a new, old friend; and here she finds her voice, slight and delicate.

GIRL: Time and geography are just obstacles. If it's meant to be, you'll get over them.

Silence. Her eyes resume their watch of the mimicked blinds. She blinks. Belief flashes in, belief flashes out.

Suspension

Bridges go both ways.

Thoughts

01.  I'm working off of three hours of sleep.
02.  No homework. Weird how I feel like I've got so much to do.
03.  My clarinet is broken...? Problem.
04.  Driving home today I saw a mother and her toddler-aged son race each other to the front door. This made me insanely happy and I smiled the rest of the way home.
05.  Swedish Fish. Sveedish Fish. Da.
06.  I have a 4.5 weighted GPA. How did this happen? Okay.
07.  My mind should be cleared by Thursday night. This is good.
08.  I love my guidance counselor.
09.  I love my friends. "Squeeshed, like a booog on a weeendshield."
10.  I dropped from AP Calc to Topics the first week of school in part to escape my math teacher. He still teaches my Topics class and thank God, because I love him.
11.  Fobby O. Stallyun.
12.  My headband with the flower on it is quickly becoming a distinct part of how people recognize me. I am okay with this.
13.  White Hot Party rave, 11/6/09. Psych!
14.  Today's song is "Secret Heart" by Feist.

"Secret heart, come out and share it. This loneliness, few can bear it. Could it have something to do with admitting that you just can't go through it alone?"

Down the road, everything will come up roses.

Chess

"And to hold her on his lap was nothing compared to the certainty that she would follow him and not disappear, like certain dreams that suddenly burst and disperse because the gleaming dome of the alarm clock has floated up through them."

The Defense

It Didn't Say Anything, It Just Said Nothing

It feels like a wire hanger latched onto my navel, twisted its metal hook deep into my abdomen and with one fell swoop ripped the entirety of my insides through a cavity in my skin, flinging them 70 miles per hour across the room to land on top of a pile of burning charcoals. As I sit, clinging onto my sagging frame, holding what little is left of me together, I watch as everything that kept me operative writhes in the heat, diminishing into foul curls of smoke.

You tore yourself from me.

Hollow, I will only last so long.

El Maíz

Everything about this makes me smile.

Criss Cross Applesauce

I have been surrounded by people I love this weekend. Friends from my past met friends from my current reality. The blending was seamless, something I didn't expect but happily acknowledge. At this very moment I am impatiently awaiting the beginning of a dinner (my mum cooked--like really cooked--tonight!) I will share with 10 others-- family, grandparents, and decades-long family friends. It's like Thanksgiving, but a month premature.

I feel immense pressure right now. I have about three days' worth of homework and perhaps 36 hours with which to complete it. The blame lies solely with me; I put this stress upon myself...but I'm choosing to (or at the very least, trying to) stay calm.

My friend drove up 2 hours to visit me yesterday. I got lost in a corn maze with an unexpected companion this afternoon. And at this very moment, I have a pot roast, potatoes, pumpkin bread, and apple pie waiting for me in the next room over.

My latest truth: sometimes it's worth throwing yourself into turmoil if you can enjoy a few seconds of peace along the way.

Let It Fly In the Breeze and Get Caught In the Trees

Today I chopped off three inches of my hair. Now my head feels lighter, and my brain feels clearer, and I feel liberated. So many girls are attached to their hair. Sometimes I am as guilty of this weird obsession as everyone else. But right now, I've shed three inches--three inches that have started at the root, have had time to grow and extend through several months of my life until they skimmed past my shoulders and found themselves stuck, dangling at their own ends. When I hopped out of the salon chair, a pile of hair lay clumped on the floor, individual three-inch pieces of my past forever disconnected from my physical being.

It was time for them to go.
New memories emerge every day, and every day recent months drop lower and lower down memory's strands.
My next haircut waits for me, far ahead.
For now, I am content with what I have lost, gained, and kept.

I Am Hungry

Currently I am perched upon one of the media center chairs and, having finished the homework I promised myself I'd complete during long block, am indulging in a bit of midday writing. Sitting next to me are two girls--friends, I assume--who clearly don't understand (or merely choose to overlook) the concept that "libraries are quiet."

From my seat, I have been unintentionally informed that Girl A's chest is not sitting in its carrier as it should be.

How privileged I am.

Motionless Occupant of a Naked Room

I am out of body.
I am out of mind.

Life continues.
I have no choice but to do the same.

My creative outlet stayed behind.

Obviously Perhaps

Cold sheet, cold hand, groan, roll out pad across, down stair stair stair thump dog cat cold, growl hello stomach, homework? Homework yes. Do no. Times? Times I thought they were different, I'm sorry I'm sorry thank you, won't make this mistake again. Drop drop drop dad--this rain is sucky--drop drop drop drop drop traffic, why? traffic drop drop drop kiss goodbye, climb the steps, backward/forward? Backward. $6.25 please--Don't hate me but I only have a twenty, thank you sir. Bolt jerk jerk chug screech hiss stop? No next. Stop, in, where are you, you said you'd be here, whoops well no worries, out, in, out, in in in in in MFA out walk walk walk. Where's the door? Circle once, there, oh hey!, hug, kiss, shift- un/comfortable? suck it up suck it up you knew this would happen, bite lip, suck it up, smells like a hamster cage in here, this is my room, oh cool why is she in it, suck it up, Aquarium? yes! just us please, suck it up, just us just us just just just us us us, u+s, clod walk clog clunk clunk heel toe heel toe breathe talk intelligent what's new? nothing, scrounge for something, city bus: stay balanced, look LOOK yes you can, off, forward, wrong way, backtrack, seaport district, there, line long line                                   punch me, watch my self defense! NO! why are you getting closer no don't no no yes line line "you looked cute" thanks, stop thinking too much, line, I'm a member--okay, free--in, picture, why? Penguins, penguins, I love this, fish fish go fishing for fish fish fish fish shark turtle I would live here Why is his hand on my back why stop thinking--think--no, okay, why? How has the day been--not too shabby(but really I could kiss you)I won't but I will but won't. Where? eat? sure, bus--balance people crowd, get close is this meaningful where's my ticket search tear apart search it's in my pocket embarrassing, train where-- E? B. E? B. E? D. Bummer. Hit me again, watch, yes I'd be great at fighting off predators close close what are you doing closer lips brush? no but lips lips separation what just happened "you could totally hold off a rapist"--I did not know that was a test, what? stop stop stop eat? nap? can we nap yes okay music music, covers you me space space heavy lids lights dim dim out-- cold, roll, cold, ignore it, "How did you spell her name right?"--what?, sorry, dreaming. Leave return cold me too covers yes, they hold us in us us no NO close eyes close, slight curves feet mine yours let this moment linger linger on and on strange I'm not hungry--linger 7:30 ends can't wake up stay? stay? only if you want to I do I do do you I can tell you do say it--"maybe you'd better not"-- something nothing would happen, something, get up, socks, wellies, WAKE UP, down, still smells like hamster shavings, doors open, cross street, sit sit oooboolachoogoo what? STAY AWAKE "I had fun" nod "I'm glad you came" nod "it's weird not seeing you all the time" if only you knew yes I'll come again nothing would have happened, nothing? except in our minds yes yes STOP. bus, time to go--will you be okay?-nod-are you sure? kiss kiss-now I'm not so sure but nod--kiss hug

hug
hug
break apart
can't tell if this is easier than last time
don't look back
on on on
8:35 time to go home phone dead no way to say: today was perfect, if you don't mind I'd like to come back tomorrow and every tomorrow after tomorrow and tomorrow's tomorrow. "Can you stay?" I can, I can't, I want to, I shouldn't, I miss you now now now still now now now now I miss--chug chug jerk jerk LAST STOP exit train crunch splash close door--back to life. Can you stay did I have to leave did I have to? at least this time I left you, "can you stay" can I can I can I can I, I want to I do I do I do I should have said yes, no, I should have. Thank you I had fun thank you I'm tired I'm tired I love you.

9:26 PM -- 10/3/09

Out of My Skin

"I go to seek a great perhaps."

--François Rabelais

Mellow Yellow

I had a heart-to-heart tonight with one of my favorite people.

Then I had a heart-to-heart with my parents.

I am now sitting on my couch,

eating lemon cake with homemade lemon frosting

and watching "The Nanny" on Nick@Nite.

I am apprehensive about tomorrow. I am unsure. I am nervous.

But life, at this exact moment in time, is good.