---

untitled no. 79

2011-05-12T02:49:00.000-05:00

two hearts

with one desire

did fight through rain

and fight through fire

through pain and toil

wind and sea

love did travel

between you and me

with one decision

both yours anPublish Postd mine

our hearts did meet

by sweet design

once in love

twice together

your heart and mine

in any, whether

now or ever

now or then

my heart is yours

until i end

"see which way the wind blows" part two.

2010-12-26T00:30:00.000-06:00

"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 have been redeemed.

2010-10-16T13:00:00.003-05:00

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

2010-09-15T11:59:00.002-05:00

“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

2010-09-15T11:55:00.006-05:00

Like the feeling that stirs

in him and in her

is the feeling that be

on the inside of me.

untitled no. 76

2010-09-15T11:55:00.005-05:00

l(if)e and death

were in one breath

where is the after with?

gift for uselessness.

2010-07-10T00:56:00.000-05:00

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

2010-06-29T19:29:00.001-05:00

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

2010-06-29T19:20:00.001-05:00

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

2010-06-29T19:05:00.000-05:00

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

2010-06-18T03:54:00.002-05:00

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

2010-06-17T03:49:00.000-05:00

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

2010-06-16T04:00:00.000-05:00

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.

2010-06-13T23:21:00.001-05:00

You made the stars.

Why am I not satisfied?

existential crisis.

2010-06-11T02:47:00.000-05:00

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

2010-05-13T02:05:00.001-05:00

ennui
for me
today
i'll stay
in bed.

visual grandeur
and your
vicious rhetoric
make my heart tick

The Rain

2010-05-05T18:00:00.002-05:00

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

2010-04-20T18:22:00.002-05:00

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?

2010-04-20T18:17:00.003-05:00

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."

2010-04-20T18:12:00.001-05:00

"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

2010-04-20T18:02:00.000-05:00

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

2010-04-16T03:48:00.002-05:00

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

2010-04-11T16:11:00.001-05:00

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

2010-04-11T01:35:00.002-05:00

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

2010-04-05T02:06:00.001-05:00

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

2010-04-05T01:57:00.000-05:00

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."

2010-03-16T20:24:00.001-05:00

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.

2010-02-25T11:20:00.001-06:00

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

2010-02-25T03:12:00.000-06:00

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.

2010-02-11T05:10:00.002-06:00

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.

2010-02-10T03:10:00.000-06:00

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.

2010-02-04T01:59:00.000-06:00

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.

2010-02-03T19:13:00.002-06:00

it is finished, now.

2010-02-02T13:27:00.002-06:00

It would seem that I am clearly not over it.

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

2010-02-02T02:41:00.000-06:00

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.

2010-02-01T21:16:00.003-06:00

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

2010-02-01T01:47:00.004-06:00

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.

2010-01-31T03:15:00.000-06:00

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.

2010-01-31T02:22:00.001-06:00

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.

2010-01-29T17:21:00.002-06:00

thursday misadventures.

2010-01-28T17:01:00.002-06:00

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.

2010-01-28T13:03:00.000-06:00

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

2010-01-27T14:38:00.000-06:00

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.'

2010-01-26T13:15:00.004-06:00

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.

2010-01-25T02:20:00.001-06:00

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

2010-01-24T02:09:00.001-06:00

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

2010-01-22T14:52:00.002-06:00

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."

2010-01-21T13:05:00.005-06:00

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.

2010-01-21T02:28:00.001-06:00

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.

scribblettes 5.0

2009-12-30T00:56:00.000-06:00

I can see blue houses

With white window boxes

And it arouses

Inside paradoxes

I want a life

I want a home;

To be a wife

And yet to roam

And yet to give

But still to take

My life to live

No home to break

The third stage of grieving

Is making piles

Putting memories

Into folding files

One of pictures

I want never to see

One of letters

You sent to me

I built a little wall around me

To keep out all my enemies

But I forgot that building blocks

Come tumbling down so easily

I went up to Paradise

The weather’s nice but

I don’t think I’ll stay the night

The grass is greener without the ice

birthdays and mixtapes.

2009-12-27T03:53:00.002-06:00

I turned 19 today. Or I guess I "will be" when I wake up in the morning. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

A Raft Made For One

(a mix for a December birthday and a December life)

Hero - Regina Spektor
Little Red - Kate Nash
Bookends - Simon & Garfunkel
I And Love And You -The Avett Brothers
Tonight You Belong To Me - The Bird and the Bee
Where Gravity Is Dead - Laura Veirs
Lonely Girl - Sandi Thom
Where Does The Good Go - Tegan & Sara
Meet Virginia - Train
Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
Gray Stables - Iron & Wine
Things Are Not Perfect In Our Yard - Hem
Can't Get You Out Of My Mind - Aqualung
Half Of You - Cat Power
A Lack Of Color - Death Cab For Cutie
I Don't Know How To Love Him - Sinead O'Connor
The Library - Jason Anderson
I Want You To Want Me - Cheap Trick
You Can't Always Get What You Want - The Rolling Stones

download.

midnight magnetic poetry inspiration VII

2009-12-04T19:26:00.000-06:00

Stop the languid ache,
   the sordid void;
Please,
can you stare less?

   Most leave
from my bitterness.
   Would you?
Use what you want;
   You will.

I have.

midnight magnetic poetry inspiration VI

2009-12-04T19:24:00.000-06:00

Smile like you mean it
Fill me up
Break me up
One thousandth scale mess
near to most original models

This is over my head

rambling at four am

2009-12-04T04:51:00.001-06:00

I am afraid of growing up. I am afraid of failing.
I am afraid of being alone.
I am afraid of being unneeded.

I am afraid of trying to do something and being unable to accomplish anything. The absence of anything is better than that kind of nothing.

I don't want to be afraid.

I don't know what I should do or who I should be. My regular self doesn't seem to be cutting it in life these days. My regular self isn't a grown-up. It seems to be necessary to be a grown-up.

This seems to be my last night in the nursery, Peter.

I'm afraid of tomorrow.

I'm so scared of my life.

midnight magnetic poetry inspiration V

2009-12-04T04:45:00.001-06:00

Which quiet night did you forget?
   I loved you
   I was serious
The balance of dreaming falls
Your almighty independence
   leaves me alone
Home with your voice
   on replay
Pray for will to hope

This is not my season,
   is it.

2009-12-03T22:02:00.000-06:00

I want to be
I want to be an anomaly
Exception to the rule
Instead I am a fool

Growing up
Is hard to do
Harder still
When I don’t have you

Worse yet
When the stage is set
The world is set
And I have nothing to say

And if I have something to say
And you say nothing
That would be okay
Though I wish you’d say something

Anything would be nice
You know I take your advice
But this is not your call
I don’t remember this wall

Brick by brick
We’ve built ourselves apart
I have tried every trick
I break my heart

Each time I try
Each time I cry
From feeling more alone
From growing on my own

I don’t know what I’m doing
And it scares me more than you.

scribblettes 4.0

2009-11-23T04:08:00.002-06:00

Dribble dribble dribble
Is everything I scribble
Nonsense verse
And nonsense rhyme
Nonsense is a
Waste of time

Twisted strands
Twisted hands
Both of them broke
Everything broke
No one woke

Airplane noise and little boys
Playing with their little toys

Blinking lights from the city below
I am longing to be going home
Baseball diamonds and streetlight beams
The people in the city are losing their dreams

Do you see that moon in the sky?
I saw a star was in your eye

You were the moon
I was the sky
It was dark in the room
Without your light

Love is a yes man
In a world of no
People think they can
But they don’t know

You can take it all
It’s not too late to fall
Please take it all
We’ll make it all

sad train

2009-11-23T03:51:00.001-06:00

I took a sad train
To a place I’d never been
I asked you to go
You said you didn’t know
   I was alone

In the morning there was sun
I was the only one
In the room
Or I assume
   I was unknown

I called my romancer
You didn’t answer
There was nothing to do
But think about you
   I wasn't grown

And I returned
Concerned
And you said
I was mislead
   I was thrown

It was a mistake
I knew I would break
But you said you loved me
Not contrary
   I was home

2009-11-23T03:50:00.000-06:00

here sits a
little girl
lost in a
little world

dressed up
for the dance
hoping
for romance

but it didn’t
come
where you were
from

waiting
for the boy
trying not
to be coy

left alone
again
waiting
for the man

2009-11-23T03:47:00.003-06:00

You said you wanted one who understood
I was the only one who could
You came to me and took me in,
In your arms (would you do it again?)

You said to tell you everything
I loved you more than anything
So I did (I told you everything,
and you didn’t say anything)

I left my heart within your hands
And it complied with your commands
Then one day when you were still
my heart went against my will

I said “run!” my heart said “no!”
My will wanted my heart to go
(though my will knew much better,
my heart wouldn’t let her)

The Price of Peace

2009-11-20T23:30:00.000-06:00

People are always telling me to “do something.” They never say what, exactly, and they never say why, only that it I positively imperative that I “do something.” What with, precisely? With my life, with my day? It’s never certain.

It is Friday night and I am sitting alone in my living room drinking a cup of black tea, one creamer, three spoons of sugar, listening to my brother arguing with my parents upstairs and wishing I were anywhere but here.

I have 48 pages left in the book I am reading and little to no desire to finish it anytime soon. All I really want right now is to be with my best friend ignoring the World.

All day long it seems as though all I hear about is money, money, money and how the President is a socialist and how the World is going to end and how it’s all going to Hell in a hand basket. And what if it is? It was bound to happen sooner or later. It is all so vastly important to the middle-class society people that I know to be throwing themselves into a pit of worry and misery over things which are both nothing and everything. Why work yourself up into a frenzied despair over things which are going to end anyway?

Lately I’ve taken to watching foreign films and listening to music in other languages. I believe I may rather hear things I do not understand and yet somehow the meaning transcends language. Words are irrelevant. I would rather sit in a room with someone I care for and not say a word than to talk to hours to someone who is incidentally a part of my life.

Most People are incidentally a part of my life. It may seem brash and rather ungrateful to say that I don’t really like most of my friends, but I’m afraid it has been becoming a theme of my life. Yes, I would rather sit alone on a Friday night than to go out with most of the people I know. Knowing someone does not make them my friend and seeing them does not, either. What makes someone my friend is someone in whom I confide, and who confides in me. Desires, frustrations, how work was, what’s going on with the family, I had chicken for dinner, etc. These are very few and far between. And in fact, several of them disappear. People who once were very good friends now never answer. Some of them I never call in the first place.

People tell me to do something with my life. And I do not understand what they mean. I am doing something with my life. It may not be what they consider to have merit and be of any worth, but I enjoy it. The problem with this existence lies not with me, but with everyone else. The reason I must “do something” is to stay their words. I tire of hearing their persistent asking and nagging. I have no interest in this World they say I must participate so much in. It is full of People exactly like them, all worrying and despairing over things I do not understand. I do not see the importance of a degree, of insurance, of making money and “something of your life.” Who are you to determine that I am not? Things like degrees and health insurance are a part of the Modern World. I resent the Modern World with great fervency. Before the advent of such things, one could become a lawyer without ever attending a law class. They could simply have the drive to educate themselves, a task which I severely doubt many Modern People would ever attempt. If you became sick, you either got well or you died. No great hardship to die. It was a part of life. In this Modern World, dying is a mortal calamity of great proportions. ‘You are not afraid to die? What is wrong with you? Do you not value your life, you fool?’

Yes, of course I do. But I value living while I am alive a great deal more than being dead from the neck up and then dying from the neck down a good deal later. My idea of living does not lie in a 9-5 or in midnight movie premieres or in doing nothing with my unfriends. I do not remember or care to remember anything about those beyond their mere existence at some point. Living was it always being sunny at my Uncle’s house and it always raining when I was 11 and everything being miserable and hating and loving everyone at the same time when I was 13. Seeing an abandoned woodshed from the car window and thinking, “This. This is what it means to be alive: to be here now, at this very moment, in order to see this.” And what was the great purpose in seeing a woodshed from the car window? Nothing, I suppose, besides that great feeling of peace inside.

Not peace, as in the absence of war, but peace: “freedom from fears, agitating passions, moral conflict;” knowing that things are right in my soul. I am right with God, and nothing else matters. Someone I know once said that “the price of peace is peace, because those who long for peace won’t know what to do with it when they get it,” and I suppose that is very true. People, as much as they say they “just want peace,” thrive off of going back and forth over the bills and the government and the rain and the sun and the price of gasoline and their Human Emotions. ‘And if there were no ups and downs,’ they say, ‘well, what would be the fun in that?’ They fail to realize the great true pleasure of being sure that though things may change, and invariably will, some thing remain the same. The sun will continue to rise and set, actions will still speak louder than words, and God is still good.

I crave peace.

But rather than peace, I have a consistent dripping into my soul that I am not accomplishing anything, that I am not doing anything “worthwhile” and that I could “do so much more” by so many People’s words. Some who’s opinion I value and some who’s I do not, but either way it begins to pry itself inside and plant a seed of doubt that then sprouts and stems into frustration. Should I go to school? Should I not? Should I work a dead-end job, purpose unknown, only to come home to nothing and no one? Should I not work, sparing my soul the disappointment of the job but instead granting the bitterness against Humanity that comes from being told one is “not going anywhere?” No, I’m not going anywhere, and I don’t particularly want to. I want to plant solid roots, not uproot and change pots and grow and change again and grow and change again. I once read that “if there were no change there would be no time.” If that is so, then at this particular moment, in this particular room, with this particular cup of tea, I am outside of time.

Time is passing all around me, and I am absent from it. However, I am more in the midst of it than many who are whirling about in it all the time. Being at the standstill of time gives me the opportunity to observe it, to truly begin to understand it. It is always the same. It changes, it passes with every second-onto something new and different-yet it is consistent in its change. One may be sure that tomorrow will indeed come, and then the day after that will as well. Every day throughout the established World, the sun has risen and set, and now in this Modern World we try to control it. If we do not like what time the sun rises and sets, we merely change the time. Forget how God set it in motion; are our wants not more important? How imperious are these Modern People! They set themselves not outside of time, but above it. Complaining of things that are undeniable; ‘Oh, how I wish it would rain, we do so need the rain,’ and then not a day later when it has rained a quarter-inch and the ground is hardly saturated, ‘Oh, I do loathe the rain, I wish it would end already.’ Never satisfied with what has been given, and always wanting more!

And I am guilty, as well. I am so ashamed to say so. I wish I could place myself outside of this Modern World and go on with the sun rising and setting when it will, alternating between sun and rain, warm and cold, as it will and does, and being outside of time, though it is always present. Were that I could remove myself. I have become as Americanized as the next person over. Were that I had not.

Were that I could maintain that peace. For I do have it, from time to time; most People do. But very few succeed in keeping it. They get caught up in paying the rent and the price of milk and dreams of strangling their boss and spouse and children that they lose it. Then when they do they long for it again, but when they do finally get it back, they abuse it and off it goes again, to return maybe never. If one is not satisfied with peace, what is the purpose in having it? The answer is simple: there isn’t. Go on living your high-paced life, letting it go off spinning out of control, trying to tie it down (but not very hard), and then giving up and going inside again and repeating the process. It’s your privilege.

Mine is to hold on to that peace.

there's little in it

2009-10-28T20:24:00.000-05:00

Little counts, what little matters--
The only ones who always love you
Are your mothers and your fathers.
The rest only stay until they’re through,
And even if you say you’d rather
They leave though you love them true,
You know love wasn't what they're after--
A little love leaves a Little Girl Blue.

did i remember

2009-10-20T03:40:00.000-05:00

I wrote a note to remind me of my plan
I wrote a song, you're my biggest fan
Now I’m writing a musical
So I remember the way it went

I lost the note, it went missing in the mail
But you lost an eye, I stabbed it with my fingernail
We might both lose something more
If I can’t just remember to remember

I took a picture, a Polaroid
You didn’t like it so you had it destroyed
I can’t find the film
I think I’m losing my memory

But I remember that
You love me, you really do
I hope you know that I love you too
But did I remember to tell you?

scribblettes 3.0

2009-10-20T03:30:00.000-05:00

I have a box of pictures,
but none of you. An ace,
a jack—you’re my Jack.
I can’t put you in a box
or a line or rhyme-
Only next to me.

I was lost when I found you.

I put on my overcoat
but I like yours better.
I bought the new book
but then the cold took
all the life that I had,
which wasn’t much.

Did we fly on the wings of our city
and paint each winter white

princess and cowboy

2009-10-20T03:28:00.000-05:00

She's a polka-dotted princess
with a dime store crown
Says she can only look her prettiest
if she’s hanging upside down

He’s a bold-face cowboy
with a gun for each hand
One day he’ll wake up
and look like a man

Young folks today
grow up so slow
How can we tell them
what we don’t even know?

'cause I'm no diplomat

2009-10-20T03:26:00.000-05:00

Thank you for waiting.
They all were debating
if you would come
through, but I said I
knew what to do.

I took a book
and I’ll wear a hat.
Maybe they won’t
know where I’m at,
‘cause I’m no diplomat.

You’re the only one
my cat doesn’t run
from and you tease
her so, so if you please,
please don’t go.

I’ll hide away where
no one will know
I’m here and then
maybe they’ll disappear
and leave us alone.

I’m tired of people
And games they play
I play them too,
and so do you-
we all do.

Within/Without

2009-10-20T01:52:00.006-05:00

I was exhausted around 9 o'clock this evening. By 10 o'clock I wanted to pass out. Then I decided to listen to Owl City and now it's almost 2 in the morning and I am not sleepy at all. I am tired in my head but not sleepy in my body and I greatly desire rest. I haven't been sleeping very well lately. I'm not sure why. I could pooh-pooh over this for ages but that would be ridiculous so I will not. I used to have meaningful things to say but now the most meaningful thing I can think of is this:

Because usually without would mean "the absence of...something," right? But if you think of it in regards to within, it takes on a whole new idea! I'm kind of blown away by this prospect. I love it when words take on unrealized meanings.

Time for sleep.

High School and Thanksgiving,

2009-10-16T02:26:00.003-05:00

Last night I had a dream about crunchy peanut butter. I have a strong desire to watch Grey Gardens. Hunter and I saw it two years ago and I want to see it again.

My sleep schedule is totally whack. It's kind of on a 4am-2pm type thing and I am terribly frustrated with not being able to sleep until the wee small hours of the morning. And then not being able to drag myself out of bed.

I've been having flashbacks all over the place lately. The lotion I wore yesterday is what I had in my purse when I worked at the coffee shop and I used tons of it. I smelled like senior year. Then I decided to read my xanga from high school. Gosh, I hated high school.

Right now I've been having scrambled eggs with cheddar and mozzarella, cayenne pepper, garlic, ginger, black pepper, and salt. Mom doesn't understand why on earth I like ginger in my eggs. I believe this carries over into the egg analogy of old. Hmmm.

I can't WAIT for Thanksgiving. Glenward made scones and Mom cooked a ham and it smelled like holiday in my house. Oh man I love Thanksgiving. I remember last Thanksgiving...John and I stayed up until...actually, I don't think we slept. We watched Almost Famous and I told stories about people I resented at the time. I got over all that pent-up resentment. Thank goodness.

Hum diddly. I think I'm going to try to sleep.

scribblettes 2.0

2009-10-01T00:28:00.000-05:00

internal rhyme,
brother can you spare a dime?
i lost my rhythm, but i
feel it when i'm with him.

i wrote you a dream, but
it would seem the
dream i wrote was
note for note from you.

dance to the music
no one else can hear;
keep the things you know
no one else can hear.

scribblettes 1.0

2009-10-01T00:25:00.000-05:00

break break
break the morning
silence
ring out ring on
bring in your
defenses

take take
take the train in
silence
trust all trust none
trust in your
defenses

midnight magnetic poetry inspiration IV

2009-09-23T03:24:00.000-05:00

There's a song in my heart,
poetry in my dreams;
I could find love in everyone
if they would not turn me away.

Suffer to tell the serious,
and ask to dry the weeping sky;
let the woods grow pictures
in the spring.

Happiness is a highway
to an individual joy
with a voice that sings the old dream.

Trust is a promise
to always learn patience.
Fill an empty life with love,
for who rose from gentle passion
to a lifeless death?

"Almost" was a whisper;
and though I the song they left behind,
still I know that this is mine.

contradicting truths.

2009-09-10T02:35:00.001-05:00

I’m not really sure what I’m doing. I’m never really sure. I’m sitting in a half-finished room of a half-finished life. I guess I don’t really want the life to be finished, because that could only mean one thing. The room I would kind of like to complete. Except it’s never complete; I continually bring in new things. Make new things. Write new things. Hang new pictures on the walls.

I feel alone and yet not alone at all. Isolated but included. I think everyone feels this, at least at some point.

And no one cares, except when they themselves are going through it. Even then, all they want to do is talk about themselves to someone else. Someone sympathetic who isn’t actually sympathetic at all because all they want to do is talk about their own problems.

My, how selfish we all are.

I’m such a mess.

midnight magnetic poetry inspiration III

2009-09-08T16:27:00.002-05:00

Do you want to love forever
life together
imagine, remember?

Would you keep me
embrace all of me?
Make sweet morning moments
come home to me?
Capture the heart and soul of me?

It's not easy
but we can try.

Every piece of us
is some of you and me.

Flaws and all.

2009-08-28T14:59:00.000-05:00

No one is ever as fearless as they think they are. Oh sure, you may think the whole world is looking down on you and saying, "My, my, but she IS a mess." The truth of it is this: They are too concerned that everyone is looking at them to worry about you. You know that girl who always seems to let the guys treat her any which way, and doesn't make friends with the other girls? Or the boy who gets into too much trouble, who won't open up to anyone? They're only afraid of rejection, just like you. Just like me.

Oh yes, me too. Afraid not only of rejection, but of being left by someone who accepted me. Me with all my flaws and quirks. A sensitive sort might say, "Oh, but we all have flaws." Sure. But no one ever worries about their other seeing flaws in their best friend. No, we're all concerned with ourselves. Our mediocre selves that never seem good enough. And when we are, when someone loves of, not even in spite, but BECAUSE of our flaws? We try to change and get rid of the very reasons they loved us in the first place! What is our obsession with being perfect? EMBRACE your flaws and quirks! They make you unique. No one has the same set as you do. And someone loves them.

When you quit fearing rejection, it's amazing the possibilities that open up. So what if someone rejects you? If they didn't want you, they weren't worth your time anyway. There is someone who wants to be around you--go find them and be busy being around them. And they'll love you. Flaws and all.

We're all afraid of something...and I think it's ourselves.

silver spoon

2009-08-22T02:22:00.000-05:00

I hung my mirror on the wall
Did it fall
And break in pieces far too small
to recall

But my luck is far too great
for you to ever hate
Is this a twist of fate
or am I just second-rate

Take my heart, it falls too soon
I have had no silver spoon
Does my offer seem in tune
Does it fade with the moon

I have cried a thousand cries
over you and your lies
Hidden answers in replies
Can I see it in your eyes?

I have lost my way before
I have heard the lion's roar
I have looked for something more
I have pulled until it tore

I hung myself upon the wall
Did I fall
And break in pieces far too small
to recall

lists and other intricacies.

2009-08-08T16:30:00.000-05:00

I made a list a few weeks ago to remind myself of the things I enjoy. Then today I remembered of another such list I made almost exactly a year ago. Comparing the two, I gotta say I'm exactly the same.

And yet I'm not. Ah, life is a curious thing.

2009:

Things I like:
Records.
Old movies.
Reading (not just having books).
Clean rooms.
My cats.
Taking pictures.
Being quiet.
Looking ladylike (in jeans and a t-shirt).
Smelling nice.
Hugs.
Tea and coffee.
Soy lattes.
Fred.
BARGAINS.
Cocoa Puffs.
Gilmore Girls.
Cooking.
Listening.
Dancing.
Learning new things.
Doing laundry.
Chocolate ice cream.
Supreme pizza (substitute black olives for mushrooms).
Being silly just because.
Dr Pepper.
Playing outside.
Being efficient.
Writing.
Playing piano.
Making mix CDs for people and finding out they liked it.
Being not hungry.
Cleaning things and being productive.
Organizing.
Getting rid of things.
Eating at home.
Watching movies with people (especially when they don't yell at me for asking questions).
Staying at Hunter's.
Eggs (who would have thought?).
Shopping with Hayley.
My old crappy coat.
Sleeping in.
Driving just because.
A full tank of gas.
NOT WORRYING.
Jeremiah's hugs.
Getting along with Glenn.
Movie nights with Melissa.
Estate sales with Mom.
Talking music with Dad.
Getting compliments (especially when I would have never expected them).
Clean sheets.
Singing at the top of my voice when no one is home.
Planning.
Maps.
Unexpected side trips that aren't stressful because I'm not on a crunch.
Words.
Having a project.
Tacos from Taco Cabana.
PB&J.
Chili cheese fries.
Mom's chicken tortilla soup.
Denny's (not IHOP).
Seeing old friends I actually missed seeing.
Remembering fun times.
Playing with kids.
Watching people grow up.
Nice pianos.

Mostly I just like people I like and that's about it.

He's not on the lists, but I also really like Beethoven.

2008:

Things I like:

Hugs.
Thrift stores.
80s music.
Vinyl records.
Jukeboxes that actually work.
Buying things on clearance.
Washing my hair.
Chinese take-out, chocolate ice cream, and an old movie.
Black olives and peppers on my pizza.
Enchiladas and Spanish rice.
Dancing.
Driving fast at night.
Finding new music.
Buying books.
Getting to read the books I buy.
Finishing a book.
Playing Oregon Trail and laughing when all my friends die because they drown--when out of all of them, I'm actually the one who can't really swim. [note: I have since learned how to swim.]
Sleeping in without sleeping--just laying there pretending I am and thinking.
Wearing crazy socks.
Having a clean room.
Daisies.
Traveling.
Road trips.
Mix tapes.
Making mix cds and randomly being like, "oh, you have to listen to that song...wait, here, it's on this one, take it." and then finding out they loved all of it.
Making references to obscure things and people just accepting them without questioning.
Witty remarks.
Smiling at sad-looking old people in stores.
People with twinkly eyes.
Orange juice.
Free coffee.
Really great lyrics (especially when paired with really great music).
Brownies.
Having a full tank of gas in my car.
Black pens.
Sweaters.
Sharing what I know with people who want to know.
Good jazz.

Things I do not like:

Being ignored.
Asking a direct question and recieving no reply.
Bad coffee.
That same awkward taste in my mouth after a nap, a bad day, or crying.
Terrible music.
Having my invested interests discredited by people who don't know anything about them--especially when they know that's where I place my time.
Dreams that seem to imply something but not knowing what.
Fast food hamburger joints.
Pointless movies that don't even try to be witty or give a great new catchphrase.
Being abandoned.
Having to stop reading a book to do something menial.
Days without music.
Drifting away from close friends.
People just not talking when the should.
Being cold.
Being hot.
Being around people hurting emotionally and not being able to help them.

midnight magnetic poetry inspiration II

2009-07-18T00:44:00.000-05:00

The freedom of nature
makes it easy to
appear in command.

We are not.

Scream all you want,
try to balance life,
but everyone said
it would never work.

Welcome to America,
sweetheart.

Home of
baseball, apple pie,
& the electric president.

God bless the USA.

Alphabet Soup

2009-07-16T01:47:00.000-05:00

Alphabet soup and the letters
spell out, “I MISS YOU.”
But I ate my words and
looked for some new.
Another spoon brought
“YOU MISS ME,” too.

I added some salt
to spice the phrase.
“I LOVE YOU,” came,
and I was amazed
that a soup knew my
mind, and satiates.

One Bite at a Time

2009-07-14T17:55:00.000-05:00

Bitter and angry,
you take on the
world one bite
at a time, one
bite at a time.

For a small fee
you would even
sell your heart
to me, sell your
heart to me.

You are lovely,
but you don’t
believe me when
I say, when I say
you are lovely.

You sit in a tree,
waiting for me
to come save
you, to come
and save you.

Crying, “Hurry,
Hurry!” I am
coming as fast
as I can, just as
fast as I can.

If you’d let me,
I would take the
fall for you, I
would take the
fall for you.

midnight magnetic poetry inspiration

2009-07-13T19:01:00.000-05:00

Somewhere,
someone is singing
Moon River and
I am crying out,

“You are the instrument
of my dream,
a beautiful mess,
but I promise,

I love you.”

Keep the Change

2009-07-13T18:56:00.000-05:00

Silent death
in reverie-
whispering,

“I need a
change, I
need to die.”

Die to here,
die to all of
yesterday.

“Why am I
living inside
yesterday?”

Live for all
of today, for
all tomorrow.

“Tomorrow
escapes me,
yet again.”

And yet by
tomorrow, I
have changed.

“Changed and
yet I am still,
still the same.”

Keep all the
change, we’re
always the same.

2009-06-09T02:09:00.000-05:00

There once was a day,
and I thought of a time--
I am yours and
you are mine.

This is what it is,
or what it isn't.
This is what it seems to be,
or really, is it?

No, this is something else.
I am no stranger to oddity,
but you and I (not)
together, (but somehow) we?

It phases me.
He said hello and I said,
"Stop and look in a mirror, child,
didn't you know your eyes are red?"

Children do funny things.
They laugh when they
should cry (and the opposite),
and always have a game to play.

I feel so small and yet
a thousand stories high.
I have a thousand stories to tell.
I'll tell them to you before I die.

I once was in love,
it wasn't a line--
I am yours and
you are mine.

Borrowing Time

2009-06-09T01:36:00.000-05:00

I took another step towards you
as your boot heel left the ground.
Everything I do is new;
It is all true, I have found.

I left you in the kitchen,
but you followed right behind.
Perhaps I am not like other women,
perhaps I am my own kind.

If I am my own, what kind am I?
I have never ceased to wonder.
Am I the kind that doesn't try,
the kind that flees from thunder?

Or am I the kind that doesn't give,
the kind that doesn't run?
All I want is just to live,
live life well, I have but one.

For today, I will love you,
I will hold on and not let go.
I will trust in follow-through,
I will learn to say no.

For tomorrow, I will not leave my post,
I will keep a promise.
I will not begin to coast,
I will not forget this.

I brought you to the next room over,
and you said that it was fine.
I asked you to be my lover,
I asked if you'd be mine.

I took another step, away,
and asked if we could borrow
a bit of time from today
for us to use tomorrow.

2009-04-27T19:08:00.000-05:00

I was the girl everyone trusted, and he was the boy no one did. No one but me, that is.

I knew exactly what he was capable of and how he would probably lose interest, only to fly off after another girl. I knew all that. And it didn't make any difference. I loved him, and at least for that brief, shining instant, he loved me.

No one thought it was a good idea. They told me I was unwise, that I was not thinking ahead. Thinking ahead? I couldn't guarantee that they would like me the next day, much less that he would. He loved me then, and no one else did. No one else made the effort to love the innocent girl they trusted so much. They would tell me their deepest desires, but the moment I opened my mouth to speak of my own, they had somewhere to be. But not him. The boy everyone said I was wrong for loving didn't mind. He let me go on and on, and when I had finished, told me he loved me.

He had his share of problems. Neither of us liked to talk about the past. When he did, it was brief, but serious. I never mentioned it, but loved him all the more. My closest friend, my confidante. I had forgotten all the ways he had ever wronged me. It didn't matter. I still loved him.

Unstable me, with a fickle mind and a steady heart. What good was I to anyone? No one wanted to keep me. Come what may, I just might change my mind. I usually did not, but people tend to remember the bad times. And they were plentiful enough.

He certainly wasn't trust-worthy. Sometimes I didn't even trust him in the least. Sometimes I didn't trust myself, either. Sometimes he wasn't happy, and sometimes I was cross. There were times, I am sure, neither of us liked the other. and yet there still was that mutual love: an irrational love, unexplainable, and not resigned to any type of failure.

Life works in mysterious ways. When i let go of the idea of this boy, unreachable by anything I could consciously do, he came to me. Surprising and confusing, but utterly wonderful in every way. Who else could make me smile when I wanted to kill him for something ridiculous that I can't even remember? He made me laugh when i wanted to cry, and even forget why I wanted to cry in the first place. "And even be glad just to be sad, thinking of you."

I never was sad, though. No one else could make me smile as much much, or as happy as he could, without even doing anything.

A Foggy Day (a love letter to my home)

2009-04-05T13:35:00.000-05:00

The past two weeks, I have been residing in a hotel in a little town called Hounslow, England. It is about 35 minutes from central London by tube. The station is just a brisk walk down Lampton Road. All the regular ammenities are present... Free internet access, tea bags, tiny soaps, housekeeping, and yet something is missing. I have grown accustomed to coming in at night, hopping on the computer very conveniently located by the door and elevator, and checking my email to connect with the people I love before going to sleep, or, Heaven forbid, watching awful British television. I relish the idea of taking the sign off the door when I leave only to come home to a freshly made bed and new tiny soaps. The proximity to the tube station is enviable.

Once in London, the sights are numerous. Victoria Tower, which houses the famous bell, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, numerous parks of incredible beauty, Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, and a great many others. There are innumerable things to do. Hundreds upon hundreds of places to eat, see a show, shop, dance, drink, rest, sit, stand, and do whatever you could care to do.

The weather is variable, as we have seen. One day it is frigid and you need multiple layers of clothing as well as a coat, scarf, hat, gloves, and whatever else you can get your mittened hands on. A few days later, it may decide to rain. Yesterday it was foggy and muggy and very warm. By very warm, I mean about 60 degrees. In the sun. Apparently, this is the London heatwave. Today it was actually warm enough to bask in the sun in St. James' Park in short sleeves without a coat. But the traditional London weather is usually prevailing-- Cold, wet, and dark.

Traffic only seems intense until you spend an hour standing up with your shopping bags and your coat, crammed into a steel tube with fifty other people. Driving from Point A to Point B seems to take forever until you have to walk everywhere you go with all of your daily belongings.

Yet with all of the things to see, all of the things to do, greener than green parks, bluer than blue skies (when the sun comes out), and everything else, I cannot wait to leave this lovely place and go back to my home.

My home, where the sun only stops shining to rain for days on end, the summer heat is unbearable and the slightest winter chill seems to freeze over the streets, there is a gas station on every corner and a drugstore on every other, the absence of a Wal-Mart seems strange, coffee is black and tea is iced, and Mexican food is a staple of every white man's diet.

My home, where the people I love go on living without me. You know the saying, "You never know what you've got till it's gone?" I didn't realize how much of a homebody I was until I left. I miss the people back home more than words can say. I want to see my mother, father, brother, sister, cats, my swing dancing friend family, my church family, the kids at the school I work at, my theatre friends, the kids I used to babysit, the people I work with. I want to go dancing every night, watch a movie with my sister, argue with my brother about his Lord of the Rings obsession, play piano again, spend a couple hours with my dad doing nothing in particular, talk to my mom who is on the computer while I wash my face in the next room. I want to wake up and go to my jobs and work hard at what I do. I miss the feeling of being productive. I want to do the things I say I'll do, and do my laundry my anal way, and sleep next to my cats, and tell Beethoven and God my deepest longings in the comfort of my bed in the comfort of my room in the comfort of my house. I don't want to take advantage of the things I have been given without giving in return.

What use is my life if I only do what I feel like doing at the moment, when I have the capability and capacity and truly, the desire to do more? I have been blessed beyond measure, and I have squandered it. I have thrown my gifts back in the faces of all who gave. I have refused to do the most important things I could be asked to do: to love. Love God, love people... I am to love all, even those I want nothing more than to place all of my anger onto and to hate vehemently for the rest of eternity. I am to love those who have done nothing to deserve it. I should be acting like a servant, not like I am worthy to be served. I am not. It is as simple as that.

I don't know how this spun off of my story about living in a little place called the Days Hotel, but somehow it is all related. In two weeks I have learned more about my selfish desires and how I treat my life like I am entitled to complain when things do not go my way, even when it is for the best.

After four months, I finally sat down today and finished reading a little book entitled, "Silas Marner." Every once in a while, a book will come along that will change your life, and I think this is one of those. There is a passage in it that goes a little something like this:

"I can't be anyways better nor Them as made me; and if anything looks hard to me, it's because there's things I don't know on; and for the matter o' that, there may be plenty o' things I don't know on, for it's little as I know—that it is. ...Isn't there Them as was at the making on us, and knows better and has a better will? And that's all as ever I can be sure on, and everything else is a big puzzle to me when I think on it. ...And all as we've got to do is to trusten, Master Marner—to do the right thing as fur as we know, and to trusten. For if us as knows so little can see a bit o' good and rights, we may be sure as there's a good and a rights bigger nor what we can know."

I read that little paragraph at least five times before I really understood it. And now I understand part what the Lord has been trying and trying to show me for all the years I've been living. That I cannot understand. I just have to trust Him. He knows better and has a better will.

Home is where the heart is. And so my home is wherever my Lord is, as my heart is with Him.

Love,
Amelia

Manners.

2009-01-14T00:44:00.000-06:00

Cat fight
Street fight
Fur and flesh
and blood
everywhere.
“Didn’t your mother
never teach you
no manners?”
No. What’s
manners,
any how?
Manners is
when you
hate somebody
but you
smile anyway.
Manners is
not stealing
quarters from
the tip jar.
Manners is
when your
brother is
stupid but
you don’t
beat him up.
That ain’t
Manners,
dummy.
Manners ’s
the big houses
that rich fo’ks
lives in up
on the hill.
No, Manners
is what the
lady in the
newspaper
got named.
It ain’t her
fault her pop
was called
Manners.
I still says
Manners is
not beatin’
up on your
brother.
Youse is all
wrong!
Manners is
drinking tea
an’ girls
wearin’ party
dresses an’
when boys
hafta wear
neckties an’
stuff like
that.

it's a blessing and a curse.

2009-01-13T00:43:00.001-06:00

Maybe if I think really hard, I can remember the first time I remember remembering. I was two. Or maybe three. But either way I was wearing my red dress at Christmastime, and Santa Claus gave me a red lollipop, one of the ones with the loop so you could put your finger through it and you didn’t lose it so easily. And then there was the time when I was four and I remember remembering the dream I had when I was sleeping. I was in a canoe or a kayak or something but it was just me and of course I was much bigger than four but most four-year-olds think they are, anyway. And all of a sudden my canoe or kayak or whatever came to a waterfall and just as I was about to go over the edge, there was Superman flying by! I was saved! Except he didn’t notice me screaming and failing my arms at him and I just fell off over the edge and he flew by a billboard with the baby Jodie Foster sunscreen ad and I plunged to what must have been my four-year-old death. But I woke up and it was only a dream. I still don’t like Superman much, though.

I remember the first time I met you. You sat behind me and you giggled louder than I did which was funny because you were a boy and I was the girl, but you gave me a piece of gum and so it was okay. I only like that kind of gum now. It’s all your fault. You kept giving me that silly green gum and now I don’t even like the blue kind and certainly not the yellow or pink ones. You didn’t really ever give me anything other than that gum, excepting an awful lot of silly memories. There was the once when I was supposed to be about to say something, but you kept whispering funny things in my ear and when it was my turn to talk I was so red and flushed I don’t know how I remembered what I was to say. Maybe it’s because I just remember everything.

Once upon a time on a certain day, another certain boy I knew was very mean and told me something he did not really mean. But I am quite trusting of most people and I thoroughly believed him. And two weeks later I disbelieved him. It took four mix cds, two road trips, seventeen pots of coffee, and seven hours on the phone to forget the hurt. I’m not sure why it took all that much since it was only two weeks in the first place. But it did and then I got myself a cat. I still have the cat. I can’t say the same for him. In fact, I think he may be the only person I ever really hated. I don’t anymore. But I did. I thought he was the most horrible person I’d ever had the misfortune to know. And not only that, but we were friends. And not only that, but it took four mix cds, two road trips, seventeen pots of coffee, and seven hours on the phone to forget about it. Incidentally, six of the seven hours were spent talking to him about, well, him. His favorite topic. But after four mix cds, two road trips, seventeen pots of coffee, and seven hours on the phone, I forgot about it and now we don’t talk anymore except for sometimes when we have to.

My best friend and I met by chance. Not by chance, but by divine ordination, I am sure. However, it seemed quite by chance at the time. A girl I had known forever had a friend who seemed wonderful. She liked the same comic strip as I did, and the same tv show, and she liked coffee. So I sent her an email and suddenly we were friends. Three months later we met at the zoo. Yes, the zoo. And then we were the most best of friends. And a year later we were incandescently happy. And a year after that we haven’t quite reached yet. Somehow we’re exactly alike and yet completely different, but we think the same things t the same time but we go to each other for advice and it’s a brilliant new revelation that neither of us had thought of. I’m not entirely sure how that’s even possible but it is and we are.

One day last week I was talking to some people and as I am sure it would seem that my entire life is everyone else’s business, it suddenly came up in conversation about if I were getting married to a certain other friend of the group and I did not quite know what to say. I’m not getting married. Presently. But who am I to say I would not ever? I perhaps could and if I ever did but had said that I would not I would never hear the end of it for my entire life so I try to avoid those kinds of certain decisions on things I cannot really make authoritative statements on with certainty which I cannot do about anything. But at any rate, my personal life was suddenly the topic of conversation for the entire group. I am not quite sure when that became socially acceptable, at least in front of said person (For at least in the gossip circles of old and of new, you shouldn’t talk about someone right in front of them. It just isn’t polite.), especially concerning such sensitive material. I have a cat, remember?

I remember the first time I ever cried over a boy. I was four and he was five and we were in Kindergarten. He didn’t like me and I knew it but I liked him anyway and actually he really did not like me at all and he told me so on several occasions up through fourth grade when I stopped liking him because he wasn’t very brave and couldn’t even really just tell me himself. He sent another boy to tell me instead. Funny. The other boy and I are best friends now. And I’m not quite sure why. Somewhere between fifth and eighth grade we talked a few times and then we were just joined in spirit forever. Even if we never talk it doesn’t matter. It used to matter. It would bother me immensely and I would tell him so and I would cry and he would yell and we would fight but we would make up and be the best of friends again. We don’t even really have anything in common excepting each other. And that’s about the extent of it. So I really just don’t know how we got to being friends but we are and that’s all there is to it.

Somewhere down the line I met all of these people and some of them I kind of wish I hadn’t but most of them I’m so terribly glad I did, but either way I wouldn’t change it for anything. I’ve met so many others and some may have been there longer but these are the ones for to mentioning today. Somewhere along the line I got another cat. Having two cats is a trial. They fight and play and they like to do it very late and very early and I don’t like either but I love both. Cats, that is. The people, too. I guess this is my love letter to my friends. Salutations to my relatives, best regards to my acquaintances (that’s most of you, as I am quite sure you didn’t know it. I have my friends, my heart-soul friends I intend to never leave, and then I have my “friends,” whom I do love dearly but if by some freak chance you were to move to Idaho and quit talking to me, I would survive just fine.), and something or nothing to everyone else.

I kind of like remembering everything, sometimes.

mama, they're out to get me.

2009-01-12T22:59:00.000-06:00

I suppose this is the end. I could go on like this for a week or maybe two and quite possibly a month or year. So I guess I'll just say this is the end but it's probably a lie or at the very least a minor deception.

In case there has ever been any question, this is really how my mind rolls about from one to another and back again and never forgetting and never letting anything go or finish or anything.

Just in case there has ever been any question.

(And by the end I mean the end of the eighteen thousand stanza epic I have thus constructed for you.)

Mama they’re out to get me
All the people on the street
I ran inside the drugstore
To try and get away but when
I came back out they were still there
They were still there waiting.

What’d I do to get the mob?
How’d I ever get this job?
Running in and out of grocery stores
Running down the street.
Everywhere I go, everyone I meet
Seems like they got it a ‘gin me.

I run and run and run and run
Every time I think it’s safe I find one
More who wants to see me gone
Who wants to see me out
Out of the fight out of the running
I’m always running.

I’m not joking.

If I say I worry about the economy
Would you make fun of me?
I would make fun of me.
Who cares about the economy?
It’s all fake realty.
I think we lost reality.

What is reality?
This is this and that is that
and what is not is just not.
Not so and not sure and just
not. What is not? What is no?
I don’t know.

Somewhere back there I said yes.
It only made a bigger mess.
So I quit and slept instead.
Rest and sleep and such are
good when yes is no
and no is yes. Yes.

You said no but did you
Really mean yes? I’m on
A quest to find the elusive yes.
So far I’ve been as far as Dallas but
I expect before the end I’ll get
At least as far as the Palace.

Not the one in Las Vegas but in
England somewhere. With the
guards and tourists and I’ll
be just as foolish as anyone.
Maybe even as foolish as the
yes I’m looking for.

Because yes is a very silly
thing to go all the way to
England for. I can think of
fifteen thousand better reasons.
Or maybe only six. Seven.
That’s as far as I counted.

And yet somehow it never
amounted to more than
nothing. What is nothing,
anyway? It seems like just a
way to say no again without
saying no and not yes.

I think I’m going to go rest
again and maybe when I
come back from England or
wherever I’ll have gotten a
yes or whatever. Then I can
stop always saying nothing.

Or never saying anything,
except that I say a lot but
what I really mean is not that
I don’t say anything ever but
that I always say nothing,
if you follow me.

Please don’t follow me
unless you intend to be
a yes and not a no and
always a maybe but never
a not. Otherwise I’ll just
kindly ask you to go rot.

And never say forever unless
you really mean for it to
continually mean ever and
for being so sure you may
end up lost or lonely or some
other such great cost.

I think I’m lost. No, I
know I’m lost. I haven’t
gotten anywhere and yet
somehow I have distinctly
gotten nowhere, which is
even further than anywhere.

It isn’t fair. That I should
care or that you should not
or that not means not which
really means no which in all
actuality is just the opposite
of yes. Is this some kind of test?

I think I failed. I know I did,
because when I lose I get that
sick feeling inside like everything
is coming loose and I want to
throw up but it’d all come out
words and numbers anyway.

And memories and songs and
all the little wrongs you ever
did me. I’m sorry I remember
it all but there’s nothing I can do.
There’s that nothing again. Maybe
all of this is just nothing, too.

the Man in the moon

2008-12-13T03:09:00.000-06:00

Mommy don't make me
grow up so soon.
I want to be like
the Man in the moon.

Never changing,
never aging.
He always stays the same;
He doesn't play the game.

The Game of Life:
Full of strife,
and love and joy and fear.
Playing on with every year.

I don't like playing games
with hope and hate and pain.
But you rolled the dice,
now go play nice.

Love and joy and fear--
Do I have to grow this year?
Hope and hate and pain--
Why can't I stay the same?

Mommy don't make me,
World don't take me.
Let me stay like
the Man in the moon.

"Please use other door."

2008-12-13T02:53:00.003-06:00

Please use other door:
The one you tried is locked.
Push and pull and push some more,
you cannot open this here door.

Read the signs before you try
to enter through that exit door.
The sign says "Closed," but
you tried to come in anyway.

Anyway.
Do not push that pulling door,
and do not pull the push--
Read the signs, you must, you must.

"Push," not "pull."
--exit only.
Try I will,
though you told me,

"Please use other door."

can that story unfold twice?

2008-11-06T00:15:00.009-06:00

I'm discovering that my night owl tenancies of yesteryear, which have recently revived themselves are destroying my daytime living. I find myself sleeping all day long (and when I say all day long, I really mean--all day. Not just late. All. Day. Especially now that Daylight Savings Time is up.), and then staying up ridiculously late.

Right now I feel like I could lay here with my cats and listen to Billie Holiday for hours. I was going to watch Silk Stockings for the first time, but then I put on some Billie, and well, though she'd sing me to sleep, it'd certainly put the little headache out of my eyeballs. I have never understood how it is possible to get a headache in the eyeballs.

There's something so wonderful about goofing off with friends over tacos.

letting Him love me.

2008-10-30T02:53:00.004-05:00

//Oh, and if you don't believe in God,
how can you believe in love?
When we're all just matter that will one day scatter,
when peaceful the world lays us down//
Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down; Noah & the Whale

Lately I've been thinking about how perfect God's love for us is. We screw up, He still loves us. We screw Him over, He still loves us. We kick and scream and curse and cry and still He gave His only Son (the only one) to die in our place. My place. For me. The same ugly sinner that wakes up angry, curses His children, screams and pleads and cries constantly, and yells at Him when I don't get what I want? For me. I find that incomprehensible. For me. He died for me.

I haven't ever felt love like that here on earth and so I really have no idea, but lately, ever so lately, I've had this beautiful inkling of what it's like on the supernatural insane spiritual Godlove sense. Which I am convinced is infinitely better than anything on earth. It brings me to tears. "His mercies are new every morning"...every morning? Every morning I wake up and tear into whomever is closest and yet from the instant my eyes open He has already renewed his unending love for me. For me. He loves me when I forget to brush my teeth and when I run out of clean underwear and when my hair sticks straight up and when I act funky. When I'm sad or mad or cranky or seriously angry or frustrated or immensely happy or doing okay or doing not so okay. His love is not dependent upon me or anything I may do.

His love is unconditional. It's hard to understand that, living in a world that is full of conditions. you can go out tonight--if you clean your room. You can live in that new apartment--if you pay the rent. You can be my friend--if you agree with me.

Yet all He asks for me to do is just let Him love me. All I have to do is let Him. Accept His love.

I started wearing my key again. Once upon a time, when I was about twelve, maybe thirteen, I found a really simple but cool old key and put it on a really simple but cool old chain and wore it, calling it the key to my heart. I would laugh to myself and wish I had a boyfriend (oh, how naiive I was), and say I'd give it to the boy that won me (why would I ever have wanted a boy to win me? I only need one and I don't need him till he's a man). Now suddenly I find myself wearing it again, because it is still the key to my heart but it belongs only to Him. Only.

Ready me, my Beloved. Make me without spot or wrinkle, ready to be your bride.

Well, I s'pose it's that time of year again.

2008-10-28T03:02:00.005-05:00

The time where I run out of things to do and start telling people things they didn't want to know.

For example, today, I will proceed to tell you all about how impatient I am.

I want to grow up.
Move out of my parents house.
Get married.
Have kids.
Watch said kids grow up.
Move out of their parents house.
Get married.
Have kids.
Process repeats until I die.

(Insert here reminder to self that victims cannot worship and only a guilty culprit can but I still feel like ranting and raving)

I'm impatient for all of these things but I'm so far away from every one. I'm not anxious for any boy, but desperately desirous for all the things that society says come from one. no, not even all. I want to be: loved, held, reminded of God's truth, whispered to, smiled at, not alone? (though I'm not alone.)

(Insert here reminder to self that the Lord has already fulfilled every one of these wants but I still want them right here right now from a person I can touch see hold love kiss dream sleep night day tea for two afternoon right here right now)

I confess that I am afraid Jesus will come back to claim His Kingdom before I get any of this.

I am really really afraid of that.
("Only fear the Lord," says 1 Samuel)

But I am still anxious of it.
("Be anxious for nothing," says Phillipians)

Well, I'm troubled.
("Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid," says John)

Well is there nothing that I can be?
No. Trusting, yes. Patient, yes.

("But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control," says Galatians)

Ah! My flesh just wants to be jealous and impatient and afraid and anxious and troubled and pout until I get what I want.

("Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.," says Galatians.)

*headdesk*

"Music has charms to soothe the savage breast..."

2008-10-27T01:33:00.003-05:00

"...to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak."
William Congreve, The Mourning Bride

I went a little new music crazy today. And most of it wasn't even new. I'm very excited about it. And I won't tell you how many albums I downloaded because even guilt-free me is a bit guilty about it. But most of it was quite old or relatively so and I won't dwell on it. But I did I find a new love in Joan As Police Woman.

And why is it that the saying became, "charms to soothe the savage beast," when it was written, "breast?" That really doesn't make any sense. Maybe we just alter what we don't understand so as not to have to admit we do not understand whatever it is that we don't understand.

Maybe people are just afraid of being wrong. Being misconceived, misunderstood (oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood), mistaken for something they aren't (or maybe something they are but won't acknowledge), or less than equal to everyone else. Newsflash: we won't ever all be equal. We're only equal in our inadequacy. Sin, flesh, selfishness, etc. I'll never: have hair as shiny as, teeth as white as, skin as clear as, play as well as, joke, speak, laugh, or smile as lovely as, or exist as "wonderfully" as: anyone of you. And I'm sure you could all come up with your own list.

But you know what? It's okay. Because I only perceive myself to be inadequate. I was created exactly as was intended and to want any less or more is saying that He didn't really quite know what He was doing when He gave me 20/100?150?+? vision or blonde hair or the inability to develop upper arm strength.

Through Him, I am perfected.

i always had a blogger's heart

2008-10-26T02:11:00.000-05:00

//well all I want is to just be free
to live my life like I want to be
well all I want is to just have fun
to live my life like it's just begun//
Pushin' Too Hard -- The Seeds

I just saw an ad that asked if perhaps my entire childhood was a hallucination.

Of course, it wasn't, but sometimes I feel like I live my life from dream to dream.

And I think I'm between dreams right now.

Let me, Irene

2008-08-23T08:40:00.000-05:00

Let me, Irene
Irene, I ran to you
You never ran to me
Since then I don't know where you've been

Irene
Irene, I ran from you
You never ran from me
Since then you don't know where I've been

You didn't say goodbye,
But neither did I

Irene
Let me, Irene
Rent the room you left
Brown the walls became
They had been blue
I had been blue
For you they were brown

I ran, Irene
Let me, Irene
Let me,
Let me run

i have something to say.

2008-08-23T08:39:00.000-05:00

Hey you,
you're just a child,
yet somehow you still
drive me wild.
I can't explain it,
it makes no sense.
I don't think you
understood what it meant.
Time goes by,
you're still a kid.
I grew wiser but I
still can't get rid (of you).
Wish I could say
you'd grown up,
or that I had, too--
--we are sorry to interrupt
this message with
Breaking News.
The child played the wiser girl;
she still is being used.

be yourself.

2008-06-28T10:17:00.000-05:00

Be yourself. Don't give up. Make it happen. You can do it.

Everyone has a phrase. Something they repeat to themselves in the night, when they feel their world is crashing in on them. Does it make it better? Does it really give anyone the courage to wake up the morning after they breakdown and face everyone? As for myself, I too often fall asleep wondering what I've done wrong. Where I got turned around. How I got to where I am. Perhaps, just perhaps, if I stopped wondering what happened, and started looking towards what is going to happen, I would be less anxious about the past. The past is in the past. Don't look back—only look forward. You can't do anything about what is finished, but you can affect what is yet to come.

I have made mistakes in my life. I have held on when I should have let go, I have let go when I should have held on for dear life, I have stopped when I should have run with everything I had, I have run when I should have stopped and looked about, I have turned around when I should have kept straight, and I have kept going in one direction when I should have realized I needed to go back where I came from.

Do I make anything different by dwelling on what I have already done in my life, or is it all just passing nostalgia, holding me back from where I could still go? If I keep my mind and heart somewhere they do not belong, it prevents them from going somewhere else. I am sure there is something more for me in this world than a reminder of what I did wrong and what I may have incidentally done right. Go left? Right. Correct. Yes. I mean, yes. Go left. Do it, run with it all you have. You'll find your way. You'll know what you should be, where you should be, who you should be if you just keep going. If you stand still and watch the world spin around you, watch the people moving so fast, running from one place to the next, going from one life to another, and let it all pass you by, you'll never know. If you only watch others live their lives, how are you to live your own? I have spent my entire life watching other people live, and never living for myself. Living is something only you can do. No one can do it for you. You are responsible for your own decisions, for your own actions. You must make your own choices and face your own consequences. I am a people-watcher. I watch people. I notice the man at the bus stop, I know the name of the woman in the grocery store. I frequent the same many places a great many times.

Where is the line between living your own life and living living to watch others live theirs?

so cradle your head in your hand and breathe

2008-03-16T00:49:00.000-05:00

I was going to say something profound but then I didn’t have anything to say.

I did. But I got wrapped up in a song and breathing in and out and thinking how wonderful it is that I can breathe on my own, but that I shouldn’t be breathing on my own.

Because every breath should be the stepping in of divinity. It isn’t always a bad thing to be on life support. If I need help just breathing, i certainly can’t live my life on my own.

I have to have this realization every day. I can’t just realize it once and it be so. Every day I have to wake up and come to the conclusion, completely separate of other days, that I can’t go it alone.

Though it gets kind of frustrating, because while this is something I have to decide for myself every single day, there are always people telling me what to do when I’m already doing it of my own initiative without their assistance and they act like if they didn’t tell me I wouldn’t do it. I am capable of doing things for myself without everyone hovering over me and babysitting me and watching what I do. I can take care of it. I’m a big girl.

A big girl that still needs help and still needs love and still needs her friends and still needs her mommy and still needs her daddy, but capable of doing things by herself. I’m always asking my mother what she thinks will become of me when I’m not living in her house where she can tell me when to go to bed when I’m already going, or to do my homework when she doesn’t even remember which classes I’m taking. She usually diverts away from that. Nut one of these days, I’m not going to live with my mommy. Not that I don’t love my home or my mother or my family, but hopefully that will be sooner rather than later. Not that i’m not thankful to have things taken care of for me, but I have to learn how to take care of myself.

Or rather, I have to learn that I can’t take care of myself--and that there’s only One who can. Just one. Even my parents can’t take care of me. And I certainly can’t actually take care of myself. But I have to get out on my own before I can experience that and live it and realize it for myself in the real world.

I mean, seriously, I live in my parent’s basement. There is nothing real about it. My life is an 80s chick flick.

And there may be screaming and crying while going at it, but there will be joy and laughter, too. Give and take, up and down. Only the bad things can make you truly appreciate and thankful for the good. Only the ugly can make you see the real beauty.

Man, this really spun out further than I thought it would.

Love,
Amelia

A thought.

2008-02-21T22:22:00.000-06:00

I saw a t-shirt yesterday. It said, "If you aren't praying for peace, what are you praying for?" And that brought a thought about in my mind.

Well, I'm praying for turmoil, of course.

Wrong. No. We pray for peace. Peace of mind, peace of finances, peace of spirit, peace of nations, peace of Jerusalem...we don't pray for turmoil. That's ridiculous. Fire, perhaps. Perhaps we pray for fire. To go through the refiners crucible and come out the other side, not unscathed, but refined. But not turmoil. That's off the mark.

Life is personal. It is. People try to de-humanize it, to make everything on the same level. To make it all straight and all "normal" and all "functional." Life isn't that way. It is personal. Why should we try to be anything but people? That's what we are. That's how God made us. As people. Yes, we've lost some things along the way, but we were always--people. Life is personal. If life isn't personal, what the hell is it? Nothing. It is nothing. Because life, as we know it, inherently has to do with people. If you take away the people, you are left with nothing.

If you aren't praying for peace, what are you praying for? If life isn't personal, what is it?