"see which way the wind blows" part two.

"see which way the wind blows" part one.



Alice wandered about for quite some time. She knew not where she was going, and, after a time, began to forget who she was. This would never do. So she tried to ask others who she was. She tried to ask a fish, but he up and swam away. No help, those fishy ikhthus. Alice approached a flower, but before she could say anything to it, it wilted and the wind blew its seeds across the way. It would seem the flower didn't quite know who it was, either. The wind had told her to "see which way the wind blows" to find where she was going, but it would seem she couldn't find where she was going until she found who she was, besides. Perhaps the wind could direct her to herself. Alice followed a piece of paper around for a while, but it flew up into a tree, and Alice was quite sure that she wasn't in the tree, so she gave up. After all, she was right here on the ground, where she ought to be; where she was supposed to be. None of this flying about business for her. One can't fly about if they aren't sure of themselves, and Alice certainly wasn't. Oh no, she wasn't sure who she was at all.

And then one day, Alice went into a curiosities shop and found an old book. As it were, the book had been hers. As to how it came to be in a curiosities shop made Alice curiouser and curiouser, but no matter. The book was full of her handwriting and of thoughts she had once possessed. She didn't know what happened to the thoughts, however. Perhaps her thoughts did not stay firm on the ground where they ought to and flew into a tree. Perhaps it really was her in the tree, even though she, herself was firm on the ground.

So Alice went back to the tree, and sure enough, that piece of paper was still stuck on one of the high branches. Alice pulled up her skirt and climbed that tree, retrieving the paper. After getting back to the ground where she belonged, Alice read what was written on the page. In her own handwriting, curiously enough, she had written: "I am Alice. Not quite grown-up, but not quite not. I like the sunshine and the rain; I like happiness and sometimes pain (if pain is leading to more eventual happiness). In case of losing myself, simply read this to be found. Sincerely, Alice."

Having found herself again, Alice went back to the wind and simply asked it which way it was blowing. It gave an answer, but it wasn't quite intelligible. The wind has been known to shriek a bit, you know.

I never said I was perfect.

But sometimes I try really hard to be. This, of course, never works out. My disappointment in my imperfect self turns to apathy towards everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Suddenly, since nothing is ever done as well as I think it should be, it isn't worth doing at all. That's the crazy talking, but it happens. Then this girl does almost nothing since nothing is good enough.

Well maybe nothing is "good enough," but who cares? Life goes on, with or without perfection.

Yet for some reason, though I am able to see the flaws and imperfections in other people, I do not become apathetic towards them. I love them all the same. There are always those few who act appallingly and when they don't listen to reason get ostracized for a time or for forever, but in general, their flaws don't detract from their other personal merits. Why do I not take this view towards myself? If one thing is not absolutely right, everything is wrong and nothing counts. It's like flinging myself off a bridge because I had a bad hair day. That's the crazy, acting.

There's a lot of crazy in me. But then, anyone who was ever interesting was crazy, too. At least there's that.

It's hard to not try to be perfect all by myself. Or at all. I try to not try. Or rather, I try to just let God do it. That shouldn't be hard, but it is. Maybe it's because of the crazy.

Maybe it's all because of the crazy.

I have been redeemed.

The past is irrevocable.

I stand in the bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror. I hold my own gaze until I am aware of every freckle in my eyes, every irregularity, every thing that makes my face different from someone else's. I stand in my bathroom peering at my own face and take in the vast account of what I have done. I am accountable to my own life.

I have committed sins against everyone who has ever been close to me. Some of those have been beyond my repair. Once I fully became aware of what I had done, so much time had past. Saying I was sorry would never be enough. Sometimes no words were spoken aloud; one moment of locked eyes said everything: I had been wrong. And someone else had to pay for it.

So I stood in the bathroom and accounted for all my deeds and offenses. My actions, which not only affected myself negatively, but those to whom they were committed. Some relationships may never be made whole again. Some may never be made part. And none may ever be the same as they were. What I have chosen has changed my history.

Despite my remorse over my past, I cannot change it. It shall always be what it is. I look into my own eyes and tell myself, “You have been redeemed.” Though I cannot alter the course of my actions up until today, I have been redeemed. I may not be capable of mending those whom I have broken, but I may be made unbroken, myself. I have not been repaired or refinished, but I have been made new. I may not change history, but I affect my future. Just as only I can look at myself and see my own face, only I can make my own choices.

I am responsible for every misdemeanor I perpetrate. Any good thing is not my own. I, myself am wholly spoiled, the bad apple in the barrel. But I have been redeemed. I have been made unbroken. I cannot repair what I have destroyed, but it too can be made as new. Those whom I have broken may too be made unbroken, though not by me. My actions affect more than just myself, more than just those whom I have transgressed against. The weight of my choices is held by all those around me, and by all of those around them. Atlas could not support the heaviness born of what I have chosen to do in my life.

But One can. And He does.

I have been redeemed.

untitled no. 78

“I would pity anyone like us,”

you said as you boarded the Greyhound bus

headed for New York.

This was your road, and here was a fork.

And I don't expect that I'll see you again.

untitled no. 77

Like the feeling that stirs

in him and in her

is the feeling that be

on the inside of me.

untitled no. 76

     if

          l(if)e and death

were in one breath

     where is the after with?

gift for uselessness.

You have this incredible gift to make me feel like the most useless person alive. Feelings are unnecessary. Especially this one. I don't know how you do it, but you hardly have to say a thing. And there it is: me, the most useless person alive. But all I really want is to be truly useful to someone. Never to you, of course. It is easy for you to discard people with such candor. I dwell long and hard about being discarded. It seems I will never be useful.

So many people are out there being useful to someone, and I am here being useless to everyone. Isn't there someone I can do something for in some small way? It would seem not.

It's okay, I was completely and totally useless to him, too. And look where that ended up. Eight months later and I still feel like the loneliest person in the world. My friends are all leaving me for husbands and wives and lovers and others and I am alone. Some say I should savor the delicious loneliness, that it will not last forever. Good. I do not want it to. I've been alone for 20 years. I think that's plenty long enough. Perhaps I should become friends with nuns and monks. They don't get married.

I do know that You will always be here, God. Just when everyone else leaves I feel rather pathetic. I suppose I expect too much out of the world. I don't know. Right now I just know that I feel lonely, pathetic, and like the most useless person alive. Give me a task, Lord. I'm going crazy.

untitled no. 73

there are things that smell like yesteryear
smell like love, smell like fear
all these things that we held dear
are trapped in time, just like we're

untitled no. 72

my mind keeps making lists
of facts and figures, charts and graphs
accompanied by endless plot twists
shown by rows and rows of photographs

I'm frustrated by myself.

I expect too much and always disappoint. I can't do everything and get overwhelmed. I try to make people happy and don't. When people do things like disregard what I've said, I initially perceive it as a slight but know that it isn't...it's just them.


I think myself to be entirely ridiculous but can't seem to help the way I see things. I try so hard at things but never achieve what I deem as fruition.

I'm tired.

Daydreams

I know why Amelie cries. Any dreamer would cry when they realize that the beautiful thing in their mind is just that: a dream. I lie in bed with one leg on top of the blanket but under the soft leg of the cat, and dream about my life. In my mind, I have many plans. I should be...cooking. Pasta. My husband comes home from the store with artichokes and I have him taste the alfredo. “It is very good,” he says. I smile and throw my arms around him. I missed him all day, I tell him. He is not surprised. A smirk forms in the corner of his mouth. The sound of a Billie Holiday record fills the air and the pasta boils over. We do not notice.

I am disturbed in my reverie by the cat moving in her sleep. A cat's temperature is 102 degrees. It keeps my feet warm while I sleep. But tonight my feet are too warm. Summer is upon us and my blanket is too heavy. I like heavy blankets, but I do not like my feet to be too warm.

I resume my dreaming by walking down the steps of my quaint apartment building in the city. I put my notebook and pen into the basket of my bicycle and pedal to the park. I sit by the bridge over the pond and write beautiful poetry. I am working on my third book; a novella about an American who joined the French Foreign Legion because he was afraid of the love he had for a petite painter in Paris. The first, my premature autobiography, was a bestseller. Just as I notice the handsome man I have been watching eat his lunch every Thursday afternoon in the park as I am writing cross the bridge, my cat decides that now is a perfect time to stretch out and claw my big toe.

Disturbed into reality, I ponder the legitimacy of daydreams. Does a dream detract from daily life? Is real life more perfect than a dream? Or, is a dream an ultimate reality? Do all people notice the divisions in their skin as the light catches on them within their gaze? Must pianists play classical music at tempos I deem inappropriate to the meanings of the songs?

I stretch out as much as the cat and fall asleep.

The Doctor's Wife

I have no idea where this came from. Somewhere in there I started narrating from a man's perspective. Huh.

An evening of fine array

where all fine people stray

can lead to catastrophe

when straying you do see.

I noticed everything in sight,

The candles brown, the linen white.

A fine young girl walked up to me

and handed me a cup of tea.

My friend, the doctor, walked my way

and asked the girl to stay.

I said, “Doctor, who is this?

That you have this lovely wish.”

“This is my wife,” the Doctor said,

“With whom I think, you've been in bed.”

“Perhaps my memory is not the best,

but Doctor, is this some kind of test?”

The girl looked nervous next to me,

as though my lover she'd happened to be.

I turned to the girl and cried,

“And to the Doctor you did lie?”

The girl was quiet but her face

revealed the shame and the disgrace.

I did not remember seeing her

before giving me that cup of water.

“Doctor Watson,” I did cry

and he answered in reply:

“My dear detective, I thought you knew

that the wrong belonged to you.”

Can you imagine my distaste

as I fell from Watson's grace?

And as all fine people turned

to see the Doctor's glaring burn,

I saw the girl shrink fast away

to where all fine people stay.

Where fine people go to die

when their sins have seen the light.

i'm a lover who will fight for love

So I kind of have this predicament that sounds kind of ridiculous.

I'm in love with God.

Now, this is great. This is perfect. The predicament part is that even though I am in love with and loved by the Creator of the universe, I have this desire for someone to...sit with. It feels like I'm in a long-distance relationship with Yeshua, simply because He's not next to me on the couch. Yes, He's always there with me, and yes, this is actually a more perfect relationship, but it's not the same. 

Saying this out loud kind of feels ludicrous.

I think it's a perfectly legitimate need to be with one's lover, but for whatever reason it feels silly. Moreover, the desire for someone to just sit and be still with in a romantic fashion is still there, but He's not here. He is, but it's not the same. 

This really feels sillier the more I say it, but it's a very serious thing in my life right now. By wanting a physical presence when I have the overwhelming love of the Almighty God it feels like I'm cheating on my lover. Which would be...God. This does not compute.

You made the stars.


Why am I not satisfied?

existential crisis.

i am sitting on a couch watching a movie about someone that lost their mind only to find out that they lost it.

i am the latter.


i am drifting through time and space going from one dream to the next. i am in love with an idea that doesn't exist.

i am a dream.

scribblettes 8.0

ennui
for me
today
i'll stay
in bed.



visual grandeur
and your
vicious rhetoric
make my heart tick

The Rain

The rain is coming down with a vengeance. It hasn’t rained for a couple of weeks, and I think the sky got tired of holding it back. Texas has been beautiful since Easter. The wildflowers are blooming along the highway. First the bluebonnets, then the Indian paintbrushes, the Indian blankets, and the sunflowers. They’re just starting to fade away. Yesterday was the hottest day so far this year. It got up to almost 85 and even a t-shirt was sticky. But then today the massive Texas sky had enough. It’s too hard to hold it all back for that long. I think the Texas sky and I are in agreement. Sometimes it’s just too much to keep from raining. Even though everything is wonderful and the wildflowers are blooming, there is that small thing that keeps growing and growing until it is suddenly unbearable. And then, of course, the sky opens up. It pours out for an hour or so until it goes just as quickly as it came. It drips off the eaves of the house until finally there is nothing left to drip. That is all. Then there is nothing left. The sky builds up for another week or two and then it lets loose again. It is a cycle. Sometimes in Texas it won’t rain for months on end. That’s the drought. Everyone says you have to “conserve” and they have specific times you can water. I guess it’s like that for everything. I’m conserving right now. There just isn’t time for rain.

scribblettes 7.0

The man in the park
named the squirrel Bob.
What a sad name
for a slob.



Maybe a baby
Maybe a mom
I give up.
Nothing rhymes with mom.



A man stuck his tongue out at me
from his car window.
I think it is plenty time
for him to go.



I'll take a boat to England,
maybe a plane.
Either way, the poets say,
it all ends up the same.
(with regards to some song I heard one time)



I lost myself a year ago,
I knew not where I went;
I since have learned
I had returned,
my money all been spent.



"I know," you said,
but do you really?
It doesn't seem to
be the same as you though.
Yeah, little do you wot.

am i what i seem?

Am I what I seem?
I look in the mirror and see:
blonde (today); Caucasian;
got too much sun yesterday afternoon.

At school perhaps I am
"blonde English major;
likes tacos."
Is that all?

When dancing am I only
"blonde (today) lindyhopper,
quirky, and a follow."
Is that all?

At the store I am
what I am
wearing;
nothing more.

Or am I none of these, or all
of them, or somewhere
in between, or am I just
exactly what I seem?

"Please don't feed the humans."

"Please don't feed the humans,"
the sign outside the
human ground reads.

The ducks pay no mind;
they disturb the naturally-
habitating picnickers,

seducing them with tricks
while the human children
eat their sandwiches.

"Look at me," the gander cries
as the the goose glares subtly
behind his back.

"Come see our fountain," they say,
urging them outside their fence.
Fortunately, human children aren't that tall.

an uncertain state

You are next to me and
I am wondering how you feel.
Is what i think you are real
or just imagined to be?

You get up for more coffee
and the feeling still surrounds me.
Is this something? is this nothing?
Then the telephone rings.

It is my mother
asking me to come home again.
I tried to tell her
I will never know when.

I am next to you and we
are in an uncertain state;
I think I will wait,
just wait and see.

scribblettes 6.0

mother earth, father time
brother, sister; none are mine
call to arms, call to daggers
call to anyone who swaggers
blood is bled
by boys in red
who keep speaking out of turn,
who just want to see the world
burn burn burn



trumpets and lace
in a life filled with grace

melancholic lyric for a song

do you remember
the game that we played
we had our fun in
our funny little way

you were the sir
i was the dame
you were the sir and
i was the dame

and you treated me
the same
like royalty
with loyalty

you can grow old with me
you can make it hard or easy
you can grow old with me
you can make it hard or easy

and you treated her the same
like royalty

do you remember
the game that we played
we had our fun in
our funny little way

you were the sir and
i was the dame
you were the sir and
i was the dame

I seem to be incapable of maintaining more than one artistic strain at a time. I went from writing all the time to music to ranting all the time to photography but I really want to do all of them except maybe the ranting.

Some ranting is okay.

Mutually Exclusive

Another essay which Did Not Get Me Into Harvard, BUT Did Show How Peter Pan Changed My Life. Apparently a lot of things have changed my life. But that's okay.




A little boy who knows how to fly changed my life. He flew in unannounced, crowed a bit about himself, and swept me off to Neverland. Peter Pan left me with no choice but to embrace life.

Peter Pan is a lost and lonely little boy. Afraid to grow up and face the harsh realities of the world, he has chosen instead to live a fantasy-life, remaining forever young. Enter Wendy: a girl forced by her circumstances to grow up before she is ready. Although she desperately wants to grow up, she, like Peter, is afraid of facing the world. Peter Pan flew in and took Wendy to Neverland, just as he did me; he presumed that we, like him, did not want to grow up. To save us from what he presumed to be a fate of misery, he took us to his fantasy-world: a world of pirates, mermaids, and adventures that never end but are quickly forgotten.

Peter ran away from the real world and forgot what living there was truly like, but Wendy and I remember. We recall the sweet joy of Mother’s kiss and Father’s fits. We can look back on life and see the good in growing up. While we have sacrificed the many adventures that Peter enjoys, we can remember our experiences. We may cherish our memories, while still enjoying the benefits of maturing throughout a full life.

Peter does not want to grow up. He will have many exciting exploits, but will very soon forget them. He has shown me the magic of childhood games; however, he embodies the downfall of only doing as one pleases. For though he has “innumerable ecstasies that other children can never know,” he is forever barred from the many pleasures life may bring.

Wendy has elected to grow up, despite tasting the delights of Neverland; Peter Pan, after hearing the woes of adulthood, has chosen not to. However, I choose to retain both, remaining in the seemingly mutually exclusive states of childhood and adulthood. I will grow up and face responsibility and while staying, just like Peter, ever full of youth and joy.

The Dancing Gods

Here is the essay that Did Not Get Me Into Harvard, BUT Did Show How Dancing Changed My Life.




Angelia and Chandler are sitting in a booth discussing the traditional Hebrew burial process. At the next table over, Hannah and Daniel are debating Calvinism; Laura and Sarah are listening to Beck and blowing straw wrappers at Daniel and his nephew, Ryan; Amy is ranting to Ryan about something as he creates a straw long enough to reach across the table and drink Laura’s chocolate milk while she isn’t looking; I sit eating pancakes at the end of the table and roll my eyes at the lot of them. This is my family.

I danced into this family. Anyone may come from anywhere and, if they want to dance, the arms of the entire family open wide. Even those with two left feet and no rhythm are welcome, if they are willing to learn.

At fourteen, I was infatuated with all things from the 1940s: film, music, fashion, history. While at the area’s annual Rose Sale, my mother stumbled across a flyer in the ladies’ room for Tuesday night swing dancing lessons. I went, one reluctant friend in tow. I was determined to learn to dance like the glamorous women in the movies I had seen. I failed; the lack of coordination that plagued me on a daily basis caused me to trip over my own foot and fall flat on the floor. The next week I came back for more humiliation.

Two years passed. On intermittent breaks from school and summer vacations, I went out on those Tuesday nights in an attempt to relearn what I had already forgotten about dance. I made only one friend. As a shy teenager, afraid of being rejected by the more advanced swing dancers, the “Dancing Gods,” I hid in a corner with some school friends.

One Tuesday, early in my third year of humiliation, those friends decided not to go. I went anyway, to see my one friend. He promptly came to my corner and ordered that I move.

“I don’t want to come over here and check up on you all night,” he said; and so I was relocated to the stairs by the stage where several of the better dancers would rest between dances. My one friend then left me. For the first time, I was alone with the Dancing Gods. I could hardly remember my footwork from week to week. How would I ever befriend these people who were infinitely better than I? I felt a poke on my shoulder and turned to face a smiling man of about thirty.

“Hi! I’m Daniel. Who are you?” If putting one foot in front of the other was hard, words were even worse. I managed to stutter out a brief synopsis of how I came to be sitting in front of him. He laughed and introduced me to everyone there. Without ever having to prove myself on the dance floor, I was in.

I learned to dance. The so-called Dancing Gods worked with me to overcome my clumsiness and to not trip every time I danced. Now, when someone I don’t recognize asks me to dance, I gladly accept. I just smile when they say, “I’m a bit new; not nearly as polished as you are.”

Everyone starts somewhere, even if that somewhere is on the stairs, alone with the Dancing Gods.

"Let it move you."

The dreamlike state of the studio was still in the gaze of the afternoon sun. The dancers floated around the room, swaying their bodies steadily to the beat. "Feel the music," the instructor said, "Let it move you."

The room was silent but for the continuous rhythm of the guitar. No one dared to disturb the peace with the sound of their voice. Rock step, step, step, and on. "Change partners."

The room was warm as the circle continued moving. The lilting voice of the instructor matched the movement of the music. He walked towards the center of the studio, each step falling in rhythm with the song. Every movement of his voice and body was a part of the music.

The dancers continue moving across the floor. "And stop," the instructor said as the melody ceased. The applause from the students woke everyone from the dream.

exes t-rexes and sansgenderedsexes.

I am a mature adult. I can sit across from my ex-boyfriend in the library and act like he's anyone else. Because he is.

Hurrah for successful assimilation and annihilation.

dreams and schemes and circus crowds

Forename: Amelia
Origin: German
Meaning: Work of the Lord


God, why are you so painfully apparent in my life?! A better question is, why do I get flustered about taking responsibility that I am not actually taking, but you are? That is indeed a far better question. 


Trying to write a paper for English Comp defining Education. I didn't know we had to have picked a topic by last Thursday so I pulled one out of my ear during class. Then the Jitterbug Jam happened and then I've been pretty much comatose ever since, and now here it is today and it is due tomorrow and I can't seem to write it. Oh, and I failed my Literature exam. I hate community college. I want to go to real school where it's actually harder than high school was. And I don't want to get counted down on my short answer because I didn't necessarily have 8-12 sentences. Everyone knows that's a guideline! I had half-page paragraphs! Darn you, TCC! 


On the bright side, I discovered Goldmund and have visions of sugarplums and film sequences dancing in my head.

band-aids and emotional exhaustion.

He called me tonight. Well, first he texted me and said he would "like to request one more exchange with you before I forget you...just a few questions." I said I supposed I would humor him. His first question was, "Am I a monster?" I said in some capacities, yes, but in others, no. There are many negative qualities about him, but that is human. He also has many positive qualities.

It was a long and frustrating, on my end at least, conversation. Then he said, "Any final words for me?" All I said was, "Goodbye." Then he said goodbye and we hung up.
As long as I am not talking to him, I am fine. I don't so much mind that it's over, anymore. I just wish that I had been more prepared so that I could have enjoyed our time together without the hope of something more. I would have appreciated it for what it was and not tried to make it something it wasn't. But that is life, I suppose. And I know that in time, I will be able to look back with a sense of nostalgia. Right now it still just kind of hurts. It's much better. I only cried for fifteen seconds after our 80 minute conversation. That's a much better percentage than any before, since the breakup. And since it's been two weeks since I last had any contact with him, I think it was actually a pretty good conversation. Considering.


I don't really know what to do anymore. I am lonely. I realized on Tuesday that I wasn't in that circle anymore. They were all over there...and it's not that they didn't want me there, or I didn't want to be there, I just don't belong there anymore. My friendship with him was the reason I was there. Now the reason no longer exists. So that is sad. But that's life.

Then I realized that I don't really have any friends that I am close to and talk to on even a semi-regular basis, anymore. I even doubt that RW and I, no matter what he says, will really talk once we finish our project. Which is next weekend. It would feel awkward to call him up and suggest we hang out. I liked the excuse. I didn't have to call and ask him to hang out with me...we started with business and then ended up making dinner, or dancing, or going to the movies or something.

I think I am just really tired of being the only one to make an effort, in all of my many relationships. I need a me for me. I really wish I had someone in my life who would make an effort to be there and be with me instead of me always being that person. It is completely exhausting. I listen to people, and I do things because they want me to, and I help them, and I take on huge assignments like the mystery because they ask, and I really do just want to help people and be there for them. But it honestly feels like no one is really there for me. I am always the one who calls. In every damn relationship I have. I am emotionally exhausted. I am worn, and hurt, and trying to heal, and all of my close friends know it, yet if I want any human interaction, I have to always seek it out. Not a single person calls me to say, "Hey, let's hang out." Not a single one.

And that is upsetting.

I am exhausted. I am lonely. I want a hug. Lots of hugs. I want someone to watch movies with instead of watching them by myself and feeling like the biggest loser cat lady spinster. I've kind of started texting RG almost every day because I feel like I'm an emotional burden to everyone else at this point, after all that's been going on. He hasn't been burdened by it yet. So I've been talking to him.

People quit asking me how I am. I noticed this last week. People only ask how I am after I ask them.

Maybe I'm just being melodramatic. But it's like I have this cut on my arm (post-breakup pain) and since I have nothing to distract me, I keep going back and looking at it. Even now that I've got a band-aid on it so it doesn't get infected and will heal up quickly, I keep looking under the band-aid to see how it's doing instead of going out and playing tag or something and not thinking about it and then taking off the band-aid to find that it's all healed up. But when you look at cuts and stuff they hurt way more than if you don't. 'Cause when you're thinking about it, it hurts a lot, you know? It's kind of like that. Only I don't have anyone to play tag with, so I end up sitting on the sidewalk starting at my cut and thinking, "Gee, would you heal up, already? I want to take this damn band-aid off." 


I am afraid I am going to fail my sociology exam. I've been so distracted that I can't seem to focus enough to study. Lovely.

I feel outside everything. I talk to people, I watch them, and yet I am not present. My body is here but my soul is not.

I hear the music and it takes over my thoughts. It states the problem over and over again; "Unwanted, unloved. Unwanted, unloved."

The problem is me, is my mind. My mind that will not stop repeating the problem.

The world is very large.

The scope of my brief and relatively insignificant life hardly reaches beyond the walls of my home. I do not begin to ascribe any sort of merit to what I have done. In my life, I have accomplished very little. I do not even wish to accomplish much. I only hope to be continually filled with the love that has been given me by my beloved. He is constant as the northern star, the one light I can see in a world of darkness. He will never fail. He will never forget his love for me.

He will never forget me.

it is finished, now.

It would seem that I am clearly not over it.

the final chapter in my may-december non-romance.

Disclaimer: This post is not at all bitter or resentful and is highly laced with irony and sarcasm.

I am thoroughly resolved to rid myself of all vestiges of the Rambler and the Gambler and the Sweet Talking Ladies Man who was ever-so-briefly not mine whatsoever. No, sir. Down with Love, I say, and down with immature prats who think they can just tell you they Love you and then leave you out to dry when they decide they don't feel like it anymore. Well I just stitched up the sutures of my somewhat-broken heart with chocolate ice cream, a liter of Dr Pepper (Thank God I don't drink. I'd probably be a filthy alcoholic.), and Bridget Jones' Diary. Urban Dictionary couldn't begin to come up with terms vulgar enough for how invariably glad I am to be completely alone and melancholy over the most infuriating twit I've ever been lucky enough to know. Who did not, in fact, take me the way I am, as I at the time thought he did. No. I somehow managed to look beyond everything he actually did and believe what he would say. Manipulation is a bitch. Yes, for any possible conservative readers, I did just say bitch. I intend to say a lot more. You may stop reading, now.

First offense: Trying to change the external me. Wear this; stop lisping; stop biting your nails; grow your hair out; be your natural blonde self; look as nice as possible while I slack off and wear whatever I please and for heaven's sake, quit lisping.

Second offense: I didn't really mean it when I said you should do any of those things, you just took what I said and inferred it to mean that I actually thought you should. I was kidding.

Third offense: The people you call your friends are idiots and I do not like them. In fact, some of your oldest friends I rather think I hate.

Fourth offense: Trying to change the internal me. Learn how to stand up for yourself in any and all situations; cut people out of your life if they frustrate you and drive you crazy sometimes; conflict happens and you should in fact not run from it but face it head on even if it means destroying relationships; don't bother to fix problems you've created, rather, let them fester and eventually seep their way into the inner workings of your life; learn to have no trouble never speaking to certain individuals again; be able to manage the issues you have in your family, especially with your brother (even though it's really your parents' job, have no difficulty stepping in and taking control of the dilemma that is not actually your responsibility); grow a pair and man up, you woman.

Fifth offense: "Do you think that I was not hurt by all of this too?" Not nearly as badly as I was, you insensitive, unemotional, completely unsympathetic, egotistical, problem-causing male!

No! I am through crying over you and how you completely led me on into a blissful aura of feigned attraction in which I truly believed you when you said you Loved me. LOVE does not act like that! LOVE does not say that someone is beautiful inside and out, and then try to make them over, inside and out! LOVE does not say that you were a big embarrassment because you were possibly completely stressed out, more than a little emotional, and about to realize that it had been nine months to the day since all the shit began in the first place, and two years since she'd realized she was completely mad about you, you commitment-phobic megalomaniac!

And yet for some as-yet-unknown reason I am still in love with you and would probably take you back in two and one-half seconds if you deigned to come round again and say all the same stupid things you said before. Probably. It might depend on how much coffee I'd had yet. However, as it stands at this particular moment, in which I am swelteringly hot but too lazy to sit up and take of my sweatshirt, I hope I never have to see or talk to you again. The former I know is a pipe-dream (where the devil did that phrase come from, anyway?), but the latter certainly has its hopes. By eradicating you from my address book, my cell phone, my facebook, my defunct myspace, my picture frames, my filing cabinet, and possibly soon even my photo albums, I may very well get over you.

Not to say that I was not without my faults. No, far from it. You certainly told me of them often enough. And somehow you liked me in spite of my quirks and flaws. Thank you for having so graciously deigned to grace me with your glorious presence night after night, even though you thought I was an emotionally-stunted idiot who happened to have a nice ass. And I enjoyed every minute of it; every minute spent being told that I was much prettier when I quit talking. Thanks a lot!

However, for your future mate's sake, I do hope you manage to grow up. Perhaps then you'll find someone who will stand up to you more and not let you treat them like shit, and whom you will love more than a bonsai tree's amount. Remember, bonsai trees are manipulated to be small, and sequoia trees take hundreds of years to grow so large. So the redwood tree you wanted you didn't wait long enough to get, and the bonsai tree you claimed you ended up with was in fact of your own doing and creation. Have a nice life.

This chapter of my life is officially over. Bring on the next challenge, only please, no more jackasses.

The end.

Love, actually.

Yes. Well. It would seem that the only one whose physical presence I am graced with who truly loves me is, in fact, my cat. Dear Jack, who has heard me cry and consoled me through even the most treacherous of times.

This is a somewhat distressing realization.

I do hope I may find someone who will love me and my emotionally disturbed feline. It would very disappointing to be left alone with Jack forever. She may have unconditional love, but she doesn't exactly warm the bed at night. Maybe just my feet. I always do seem to have cold feet.

this longest winter

we picked flowers and we put them in our hair
then i became the bear and i fought you everywhere

now the days are short and the nights are long
the warmth is weak and the cold is strong

she was still wishing they could go back to there
but everything from there turned out wrong

then when the bear met the moon
they prayed that spring would come soon

she hides inside from the winter
the ice and cold only hurt her

now the bear wishes she were in a cocoon
until this longest winter is gone and over

i'm not really as morose as i sound, i promise.

i hurt
i ache
i fall
i break

i give
you take
i love
you fake

I always try to not remember, rather than forget.

Today is my brother's fifteenth birthday. Mom got him a cell phone. It's about time.

It's almost exactly the same as my old phone. The little message alert tone kind of sent me into a nostalgic panic attack, because the last time I remember hearing it, I was getting a message from Him (not Him as in capitalized to show deity but as in capitalized to signify a certain him, ie: the Him that has left me slightly more emotionally traumatized and definitely more untrusting, bitter, resentful, and unstable than I was before He kind of went from being in the background of the grand scheme picture of my life to being scrawled all over the front of it about ten months ago).

I kind of wanted to throw up a little. Why does this have to be so hard? Why does it have to be so hard to shove those feelings into the gutter and leave them to rot? He hurt me. I hurt myself. I don't want those residual (well, far more than residual) feelings sticking around to continue hurting me.

I guess like Keren Ann says, I do try to not remember, rather than forget. Forgetting makes it like as though things never happened. I almost want them to have never happened. And yet at the same time, I wouldn't give them up for anything. I was happy. I was perfectly and exquisitely happy. I thought He was too. He wasn't. And you can't make anyone be happy. Personal choice. He chose to not be happy with me. And now there is no we. Ever.

And I'm not happy with it.

People come and go and walk away, but I'm not going anywhere.

financial aid and tax forms are the devil incarnate.

thursday misadventures.

I deleted my Facebook account. Something about the whole thing just started making me ill. Everything has been making me ill, lately.

Life is one misadventure after another.

Today in sociology, my professor quoted Socrates, and the whole rest of the day I had this song running through my head;

A sign outside the Baptist church reads: "Mass at 10AM. Apathy's a glove in which evil will slip a hand." No, I don't know if I would go that far, the sentiment seems unforgiving. Although, I do agree, the unexamined life is not worth living.

It's still running.

toxic.

I like the responses I've been writing in my English class, so I'm going to post the ones that I am particularly fond of here. Here is today's; a response to this article on toxic friends.

It is impossible to avoid negative qualities in people. We all possess various types of them, and many are reluctant to address their own issues. While people may easily recognize manipulation or gossip within someone in their acquaintance, it takes a much harder look to realize that they may possess it themselves. Breaking off a friendship because just someone is unreliable, critical, or overly competitive may be unwarranted. However, when someone is aware of their faults and is overtly unwilling to change, there is reason for concern. The level of trust given to someone who is making a conscious effort to purge themselves of negative behavior is and should be more than that given to one who has no desire to. Should one maintain a relationship with someone who will continually disappoint, with no care or concern for those they are injuring? However, can we honestly say that any of us are not guilty of doing the same?

a letter to the world

dear world,
dear sad and lonely world,

i am sorry for hating you sometimes. some days i truly love you, and then something will happen or you will do something, and i just want to burn you down. some days i just want to burn you down.

i am sorry for loving you too much. some days i truly hate you, and then something will happen or you will do something, and i just want to do everything. some days i just want to do everything.

some days i cannot stop. some days i cannot breathe. i am afraid of not being able to breathe. i panic. panic attacks. it stabs me in the gut and hits me in the chest, and it wracks my brain for a solution which i cannot find and i cannot hide. some days i cannot hide.

some days i do not want to hide. some days i go outside. i am not afraid of outside. i breathe. and it is good.

but some days i just want to burn you down. irreconcilable differences we have, world. but i, unlike many, cannot divorce the world and go to a better place. i must see it to the end.

oh God come quickly, the execution of all things.

i want to do everything and burn down the world in one instant; one single instant. forget me, world. i am of no particular consequence to you. perhaps to some in it, but not to you.

i love you, world. i love you and i hate you, too.

sincerely,
amelia

"voltaire, hair. i'd like to learn about voltaire.'

I am quiet. The classroom is still as we complete our assignment. Thoughts tumble about my mind as I recall the dream from last night. There was a party.

The last party I held was the best. Twelve angry men and seven dwarves could not compete with the group I assembled. We were perfectly paired and complemented.

I am frustrated. Why can I not think of anything to say? I usually have so much going on in my head that I cannot seem to shut it off. And yet now there is nothing but the dark abyss. I had this same problem when I wrote my paper on the Republic senior year. Twelve pages to write and I could not think of even one. I managed to churn out three pages of senseless dribble, but it was only a rant on how I wanted to be able to make my own choices; nothing in particular, and certainly nothing having to do with Plato or justice.

This seems to be a reoccurring theme in my life. Bitter and apathetic towards most things, and then I change my hair and everyone knows it. Or do they? Perhaps none of them know me well enough to pick up on the subtle changes in my attitude as easily as the changes in my hair. Maybe all they see is an occasional blue streak and not a lonely little girl who is afraid to grow up.

Maybe all I am to some people is my hair.

Now I am a brunette. There are some vague traces of my former hair color lurking underneath. Something to remind everyone who I was before.

I think I was happier how I was before. Not hair color-wise, but in regards to my attitude. My life. I think I was happier before. Not to say that I am unhappy now, I just think I may have been exquisitely happy then, and at present I am only satisfactorily happy.

But at least I am satisfied.

i have anti-faith in people. good thing i have faith in god.

if you have just one let me be that love, if you have lots of others please let me be one.



i've been thinking that maybe present disappointment is preparing me to better recognize the real thing when it comes along; if it comes along. not to say that it wasn't the real thing for me--god knows it was. i mean more like the real thing, the life thing, the for-life thing. ie: true unending godsent love. or maybe i can only get that from yeshua. i don't know. i'd like to think that it's accessible in this life, but maybe not. having a long-distance relationship with yeshua is hard. i want to be held and kissed, and that ain't gonna happen right now. i really wish that i could just go home to him right now, but that ain't gonna happen, either. i'm not finished here yet.

i don't regret anything, though. i may be disappointed, but mostly in myself. i was happy. i can't complain about that. only idiots complain about things they're happy with. oh wait--that's most people, including me. i'm so spoiled. i have everything i need/want/desire (well, except maybe one thing, but that's irrelevant and actually kind of ridiculous because the spirit would tell me i already have it, which i do, just not exactly in the way i want), and yet for some reason i keep falling apart. why? is it because i don't trust him enough?

could be. that's a likely reason. me and my stupid trust issues. how on EARTH did i manage to translate those into my relationship with the father? oh, i'm sure it's been done many times before but it doesn't make it make any more sense. it's ludicrous.

so i would like to say that things kind of suck right now, but the truth is, they don't. not really. i only project this stupid image of suckiness onto my relatively wonderful decent life. why? not sure.

i'm kind of really bitter at pretty much the whole world. if you're reading this, i'm probably bitter towards you for something or other. the spirit and i are getting down to nails on this. that didn't exactly make sense but i can't think of the phrase i'm looking for. my brain is a little fried.

i saw the book of eli today. i cried a little at the end. i really liked it and was totally convicted. kudos to denzel washington for a) making a movie that doesn't suck (in my opinion, most of the movies he's done in the past five or six years have been pretty awful), and b) making a movie that is actually really amazing and portrays the spirit of god in a POSITIVE manner, and that he trusts him a lot more than i do. after bitterness, we're getting down to nails on trust. i've just been informed.

some days i just feel like it's never going to get any better here. i mean, this world is screwed. it's a mess, and people are a mess, and the only reason for living, really, is because god said to. i've asked him more than a few times if he could just take me to be with him. no offense to this world or anything, after all, he made it, but it kind of sucks at this point and people are the same as they've always been: slimy, weaselly, sluggish, occasionally well-intentioned liars. and i love 'em. but i would much rather be spending all of eternity with the ONE who will NEVER let me down or be slimy, weaselly, etc. but that ain't gonna happen just yet. just yet.

i'm watching a movie called dakota skye. it's good. well, it's alright. but i really like it. the movie itself isn't that great, but the idea of it is awesome. she always knows when people are lying and what they really mean, even when they don't know it's what they really mean. she can tell. and she's gotten all apathetic and embittered towards just about everyone because they're all freakin liars (hello, sinful nature), and then she meets this guy who doesn't ever seem to lie. or at least, she doesn't know if he is or not, and she always knows. he always seems to actually be telling the truth.

what a burden to have, to always know what everyone around you really means. and since people usually don't mean what they say, you would always know when they were lying to you, when they were irritated with you or thought you were an idiot or any various number of derogatory terms, or that they didn't really mean it when they said they loved you, or that they really didn't intend to call you back or whatever. anything. to always know. how how easy it would be to not only not have faith in people but to have ANTI-faith in people. not only the absence of it because people are morons, but to actually be working against it. how bitter one would become.

but god always tells the truth. he always means what he says. and he'll never lie.

sometimes i spend so much time with people i have a hard time believing that. like i know but it's like knowing there's snow in chicago but having never seen 10 feet of snow, can't possibly understand how it's possible, even though i know it's so. you know? i guess that means i just need to spend more time with him.

i've rambled on enough for one night. i'm still in the middle of my movie.

if i could write

Sam Phillips - If I Could Write

If I could write I'd set all the words free
to follow you
Tell you wonder, tell you secrets and solitude
I've had to let go of so much
It's hard to hold on now
Something far off is pulling me and when I go this time
Don't think I'm coming back

I took your ring that never comes off and put it on
Sorry to lose you, sorry to keep you after you were gone
Nothing is small, nothing is unexpected
I want more but when I go this time
Don't think I'm coming back

Desire's the element that I can't fight
Dream is the arm of God
Girls looking for themselves in your eyes
I'm looking for you
What's this supposed to be some kind of perfect
I want more but when I go this time
Don't think I'm coming back

you'd said you were happy with me
and me, well i chose to believe you
you said things were going just fine
and so i stopped wondering why

why you said you loved me when you didn't but you did
why i said i loved you even though you're just a kid
and we made a mess of things

"Theme for English 1."

In Langston Hughes’ poem, “Theme for English B,” Mr. Hughes describes the journey he takes from his college in Harlem to the Y where he writes his poem and the paper he has been assigned. He says that he is what he sees; that he is the place he is in. He tells the reader what he likes getting for Christmas, and how he is different and the same as his instructor because and in spite of his being colored and the instructor being white.

Not only does Mr. Hughes state that he is a part of Harlem and much it is a part of him, but that he is a part of his instructor, and the instructor is a part of him. Mr. Hughes was instructed to write a page that would come out of him, and that then it would be true. “Theme for English B” first explores the relationship Langston Hughes has with the place he lives, and then with the man teaching him. “But we are, that’s true!” he says; that he and his teacher are a part of each other. Whether either of them wishes it or not, their common pursuit joins them together as they learn from each other. The truth that Mr. Hughes comes upon while writing his narrative is that though he and the teacher may be as different as people may be, the element that makes them each unique and yet the same is their identity as Americans.

“Harlem, I hear you.” Mr. Hughes cries out. He knows and feels that where he is directly affects who he is and what he writes. His piece is not just his own feelings and ideas, but those of Harlem, of the street, of the Harlem Branch Y where is himself and yet all that is around him. He links himself inexpressibly to his surroundings, to the point that the things he likes are incidental and not integrally a part of who he is. I too, Mr. Hughes, am where I am. I like to write openly, but sometimes do not have anything to say. Today I have a lot to say, but not about myself. Today I have a lot to say about you, Mr. Hughes. Does that make you a part of my life? Does that make me a part of yours?

naïveté.

this life is a whisper, a glimmer of the next.
this day is only telling of all the rest.

i hate the sound of silence as it clangs against my soul.
i miss in the remembering of when my heart was whole.

i can sit in a way that makes me cry,
remembering you there right by my side.

"THIS ISN'T FAIR," i scream to God,
"i am still here and he is not."

this wasn't my choice, this wasn't my will.
i said i loved you and i love you still.

you said i had changed and wasn't the same,
and all that remained was just the name.

"I'M STILL HERE," i say to the night,
"and after you left, i did change, all right?"

i was happy, i was beautiful, i was in love;
now all i that i wish is that i was out of.

is this what it means to be brokenhearted?
i wish i had known this before it had started.

i'm tired of love and all it entails.
your love means nothing now that it fails.

i wish i could forget this,
but this love persists.

i hate it. i wish it would leave.
leave like you did; i was naive.

everything aches from my soul to my shoe
since i still love you though your love is through.




i wish i could hate you.
i wish i could cry.
i would do anything for you to not say goodbye.

but it's too late for that.
damn you, love.
love the person not love the entity.
love as in you the person
as in you the person i love
as in you the person i can't escape from and don't really want to but need to but want to but can't get away from but wish that i could not because i want to but because i need to because i can't look at you because i can't talk to you because i love you because you don't love me because i didn't pick this i didn't want this i was happy you weren't happy i wasn't enough.

love just wasn't enough.