I am facing you, and my chest is biting into itself, the way it does when my heart is too unfamiliar for my own good. I haven't written in so long, and my fingers feel old, like they've been hammering away at keys and keys without making anything worth reading.
http://jasonmraz.com/journal/2012/live-it-up-write-it-down/
Jason Mraz posted a great blog about his need to write. So I guess this is my own sad attempt. These days have been filled with so much movement — God, I am constantly moving, I am constantly moving — I have [so easily] forgotten what it's like to feel the earth sighing beneath my feet, how it feels to let the sun bathe your shoulders, how one smile can spring your heart right out of your chest (no matter how many precautions you've taken). How we — all of us — long to be loved in a way bigger than ourselves.
This is a tribute to time. To the way summer days stretch out beyond the end of the earth, to the way we feel happy in June, lazy in July, and nearly invincible when we find ourselves in August. The way our eyes spell infinity in different ways, the sound of guitar strings echoing against the night sky, the way we clamber over fences into forbidden lands, the way we drive with the windows down and wind whipping through our hair. Summer is a brief reminder of why we belong to eternity.
I can see September from here, and experience the last two months all over again: sweaty bodies piling out of school buses, construction paper littering the desks, the silence of staying after 6pm, playing The Civil Wars and running out of red ink. The screams of girls laughing, the shouts of boys playing tetherball, the reassurance found in friends sitting in empty classrooms. Life is too romantic for us to not be in love, all the time — don't you think?
We are all just beating hearts, suspended between the light and dark,
We are all just beating hearts, between the light and dark.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Viva
I feel like I haven't turned my brain on in awhile, and it's taking awhile to warm up.
I can write about vampires or education.
However shall I choose?
Managed to find a Buffy quote for my Victorian Lit paper (jabs fist in air),
and a Dr. Seuss quote for my Psych. of Education paper (jabs fist in air),
but as far as my own brainpower goes,
the inspiration juices are not flowin,
the imaginative gears are not turnin,
and the creative candle is not burnin.
HELP!
Don't panic, don't panic,
just keep writing, just keep writing.
Like in Finding Nemo. Just keep writing, just keep writing...
(Flashbacks of my swimming struggles last summer)
Oh my gosh. More anxiety.
If I actually enjoy writing and feel this paralyzed in the face of a writing assignment,
how in the world am I ever going to pass the GRE, a test that is 30% MATH?!
The desk receptionists are loud, but it's not their fault—
the walls are thin.
But when things are loud, or even when things are too quiet and my thoughts are too loud,
I can't help but let my once-solid thoughts turn into mush—or mesh?—and then everything just
slips through.
Slips...slip...slipping.....
I can write about vampires or education.
However shall I choose?
Managed to find a Buffy quote for my Victorian Lit paper (jabs fist in air),
and a Dr. Seuss quote for my Psych. of Education paper (jabs fist in air),
but as far as my own brainpower goes,
the inspiration juices are not flowin,
the imaginative gears are not turnin,
and the creative candle is not burnin.
HELP!
Don't panic, don't panic,
just keep writing, just keep writing.
Like in Finding Nemo. Just keep writing, just keep writing...
(Flashbacks of my swimming struggles last summer)
Oh my gosh. More anxiety.
If I actually enjoy writing and feel this paralyzed in the face of a writing assignment,
how in the world am I ever going to pass the GRE, a test that is 30% MATH?!
The desk receptionists are loud, but it's not their fault—
the walls are thin.
But when things are loud, or even when things are too quiet and my thoughts are too loud,
I can't help but let my once-solid thoughts turn into mush—or mesh?—and then everything just
slips through.
Slips...slip...slipping.....
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Angry Orchard
We lifted ourselves out of this, so many times before —
we were born to rise, like phoenixes (she says)
I say we were born to lie and lay, like bones bathed in dust —
we were born with hearts forgotten in the sun.
He says we are beings made mechanic,
he whispers sharply of "-ologies" and "-isms."
I only see the crinkles in my trembling hands,
my palms outstretched and weary.
You were always demanding that I fight —
but would you meet me in this? This tiredness?
Were we all once butterfly wings?
Or beast-arms, beating madly against the current?
we were born to rise, like phoenixes (she says)
I say we were born to lie and lay, like bones bathed in dust —
we were born with hearts forgotten in the sun.
He says we are beings made mechanic,
he whispers sharply of "-ologies" and "-isms."
I only see the crinkles in my trembling hands,
my palms outstretched and weary.
You were always demanding that I fight —
but would you meet me in this? This tiredness?
Were we all once butterfly wings?
Or beast-arms, beating madly against the current?
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Several flashbacks
swimming pools & The Exorcist
I didn't open my eyes once
(well, sort of)
the one time I did I felt
fear and chlorine sting my insides
and I saw you through that underwater haze,
still insane then, but in a good way.
The Badlands
Gatsbys American Dream, Forgive Durden, Daphne Loves Derby, This Providence
arms & waists & elbows,
and the smell of sweat stuck to the walls,
the smell of cigarette smoke
who did I love then?
my studded belt,
nic, rudy, dan, kenny, kirk,
so easily swooned by semi-stardom,
kicked alive by the sound of the bass drum.
Halloween
and we were never never never land king
and his fairy princess
I don't remember what we watched
but I remember what I didn't,
and the panic, searing panic.
dollar menu
we only had a dollar
but we had made it to the city
on a stuffy metro bus full of strangers
so we shared a cheeseburger and smiled.
green jacket, orange vest
our friendship was framed by our non-friendships:
you and her blue-eyed deceit layered thick
me and his brown-eyed heartache
therapy via skyscrapers
north city
in the shade of the poison tree.
summer, and my long, winding driveway
you made me a mix tape and I laughed;
everyone else had always sung for me and
I didn't know any better
than to listen.
gasworks
just you and I and an empty camera
sandwiched between God's greens and blues
a sweatshirt with a unicorn
and glasses too big for your face
bubble tea
and he and you and he and i and he and another he
we found locked doors this winter
the crawling realization and lifting freedom
of not being who I was then
but seeing all the gifts I was given too young
when the city bustle eased our nerves
and in empty suburbia lay our greatest fears
we were young, all of us,
and now some of us are in love
and some of us are still searching
I think I started growing up around 16
when I stopped gazing at the stars
when we started following rules,
but now I am 20,
and I've started gazing at the stars again,
and running recklessly against the wind,
but I still can't seem to place
that something that once was.
I didn't open my eyes once
(well, sort of)
the one time I did I felt
fear and chlorine sting my insides
and I saw you through that underwater haze,
still insane then, but in a good way.
The Badlands
Gatsbys American Dream, Forgive Durden, Daphne Loves Derby, This Providence
arms & waists & elbows,
and the smell of sweat stuck to the walls,
the smell of cigarette smoke
who did I love then?
my studded belt,
nic, rudy, dan, kenny, kirk,
so easily swooned by semi-stardom,
kicked alive by the sound of the bass drum.
Halloween
and we were never never never land king
and his fairy princess
I don't remember what we watched
but I remember what I didn't,
and the panic, searing panic.
dollar menu
we only had a dollar
but we had made it to the city
on a stuffy metro bus full of strangers
so we shared a cheeseburger and smiled.
green jacket, orange vest
our friendship was framed by our non-friendships:
you and her blue-eyed deceit layered thick
me and his brown-eyed heartache
therapy via skyscrapers
north city
in the shade of the poison tree.
summer, and my long, winding driveway
you made me a mix tape and I laughed;
everyone else had always sung for me and
I didn't know any better
than to listen.
gasworks
just you and I and an empty camera
sandwiched between God's greens and blues
a sweatshirt with a unicorn
and glasses too big for your face
bubble tea
and he and you and he and i and he and another he
we found locked doors this winter
the crawling realization and lifting freedom
of not being who I was then
but seeing all the gifts I was given too young
when the city bustle eased our nerves
and in empty suburbia lay our greatest fears
we were young, all of us,
and now some of us are in love
and some of us are still searching
I think I started growing up around 16
when I stopped gazing at the stars
when we started following rules,
but now I am 20,
and I've started gazing at the stars again,
and running recklessly against the wind,
but I still can't seem to place
that something that once was.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Don't you ever feel like you've been destined for something bigger than your skin?
Listened to Forgive Durden's album "Razia's Shadow: A Musical" and was reminded of all the things—well the only things—that truly make sense.
Because an idea is only relevant if it's being thought upon.
So remember, never surrender.
Because the unrelenting constancy of love and hope
Will rescue and restore from any scope.
Love. Great, big, bigger-than-our-skin, bigger-than-the-moon love.
Tomorrow one of my best friends is giving her life to Jesus. Tomorrow is the day we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead. Tomorrow we celebrate the Greatest Love ever known.
The story of the Resurrection is so bizarre and crazy and incredible, that I can't believe I heard it growing up and still didn't understand that I was loved. We are loved. We have an all-powerful and all-personal Savior who loved us enough to take on our darkness, our ugliness, our guilt, our pain, our broken, broken selves, so we could be truly, truly free.
That's insane. So insane, it has to be true. Because let's be real, the story of Jesus being tortured and encountering the highest form of suffering for us puny little humans just doesn't make a very good fairytale.
Jesus = winning.
:)
Happy Easter.
Because an idea is only relevant if it's being thought upon.
So remember, never surrender.
Because the unrelenting constancy of love and hope
Will rescue and restore from any scope.
Tomorrow one of my best friends is giving her life to Jesus. Tomorrow is the day we celebrate Jesus rising from the dead. Tomorrow we celebrate the Greatest Love ever known.
The story of the Resurrection is so bizarre and crazy and incredible, that I can't believe I heard it growing up and still didn't understand that I was loved. We are loved. We have an all-powerful and all-personal Savior who loved us enough to take on our darkness, our ugliness, our guilt, our pain, our broken, broken selves, so we could be truly, truly free.
That's insane. So insane, it has to be true. Because let's be real, the story of Jesus being tortured and encountering the highest form of suffering for us puny little humans just doesn't make a very good fairytale.
Jesus = winning.
:)
Happy Easter.
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