When Skies Are Grey
In two days, I’m going to Zambia, Africa for a month.
In two days, I’m going to Zambia.
In two days, I’m going to Zambia.
I don’t know how long it’s going to take for that to soak in. It’s going to be a mighty wild ride. I don’t even understand what our adventure will really entail. It’s a month of service, a month of work. A month of building a family with people I may never see again. A month of building something that’ll last. A month… A month of my life. It seems like it’ll be so short. A month away from the people I love.
In two days, I’m going to Zambia.
Where did the time go?
This past fundraising condition, I fought to stand up every day, and commit to my personal growth. Just a few hours ago, I gave a testimony on what the condition was for me. In part, that was a lie. *shrugs* Oh, well. They’ll never know. They just think I’m happy now. And, I am.
I’m happy.
YOU make me happy.
The Witching Hour
Once night falls over my house, and my sisters and my parents go to bed, I tip-toe out of my room to muted lights and silence. Silence is easy. In the dead of night, it isn’t deafening, as you’d think. Every little noise I make is a symphony, completely embraced and enthralled by the empty air. Beautiful. This always feels like my time, my place to be.
I used to dread these sleepless nights. Insomnia would hit at 11:21, on the dot, and I would lie in my bed staring at the ceiling. Resolutions from earlier in the day would melt away as doubt crept in, and not even closing my eyes and willing sleep to come over me could herald its coming. I’d read, I’d go online, I’d draw. Nothing worked. Nowadays, I can knock out like a light, but not tonight. I took a nap earlier today. It’s probably why I’m not tired in the slightest now, at 2:24 AM, especially when I have a six mile bike ride planned out for tomorrow morning. Exercise is easy to talk about, even easier to think about, but downright hard to do. I’ve never been the type to run from things. When the going gets tough, I buckle down in my down comforter and sweats to wait it out. Confrontations are better than anything else, but leave me empty and cold. With some people, I wish I only had the guts to provoke them. I wish that I could just stop being such a chicken, and call them. Anything. Tomorrow was going to be proactive. Good. But now, I don’t think I’ll have the energy. My alarm is set to go off in three and a half hours. Ugh. Gross. I suppose I should technically go lie in bed for a little while longer, but sitting here in my swivel chair, composing prose in my head, I feel like I can really be a world famous author.
The prose compositions are always thought-provoking, but they are fleeting, and as soon as I move to write them down they are gone, whisked off into the back of my brain for future reference, when I am in a similar situation two weeks from now, or when I’m secretly smelling a friend while hugging them.
I have this obsession with smells. When I was little, my favorite smell in the world was my grandma. Since her house has been adopted by my aunt, it no longer smells like Grammy, but it sparked something within me. Melanie has her voice, Dad has his ears, and Grammy… Grammy had her nose. She could smell whatever I had gotten into that day from five feet away. I always could smell her. Other things, such as my best friend’s house, freshly laundered sheets, and the rain are all associated with smells in my mind. For the life of me, however, I can never bring them back in my head, as I would the memory of a person.
People in my head are constantly changing. If I try to recall someone, say my best friend from school, her face goes through five or six angles and emotions before it is satisfied that it truly is her. Oddly enough, she, too, comes with a scent memory that is fleeting but all too memorable.
My mind is such a strange and twisted place. Women think like string, men like noodles. Even that analogy doesn’t do justice to my thoughts. Because once my thoughts have left, I always feel like part of me is missing. Like I’ve trivialized them. Like they’re scents in the wind, always there with me, but gone the second I try to pin them down to bring them closer to my core.
Clockwork
The drain pulls the shower water down, despite the protest of insistent hands. Knees give out, and she cups the water at the bottom of the tub, to keep it from slipping away like everything else she has known. Hot rain pours on her back and face, heavy and unrelenting. No matter how she tries, she cannot hold on to the people and things she loves. Even plugging the drain is only prolonging the inevitable, she thinks, and she finally lets her hands fall to her sides. She breaks down.
Even as the tears come, as clockwork as the sprinklers of an upper class home, they are devoid of emotion, and she knows it. No, she taught herself how not to feel a long time ago, and even now she is convinced that she has no home, no peace, no soul. She is so used to being empty, she feels full. She imagines this is how a dying person must feel. The entire world crashes around her, and nothing. When she is alone, she craves the company of just about anyone, but when they are finally by her side, holding her hand, there is an evergrowing perversion, unnatural, alien to all that she knows she is. It climbs deep within her, through every corner of her being, eating away her insides until all that is left is a shell, an empty body, resembling the girl no longer.
Even so, the darkness has not, and will not devour her completely. A shard of hope within her cries out desperately to be set free from this cat-and-mouse game. The soul is torn to the point of exhaustion until it finally gives up. The parasite, bored with the inactive host will poke the soul a few times, attempting to provoke some sort of reaction, some sort of fight. The invader needs the battle almost as much as it needs the girl herself, because without the battle, there can be no victory. Still, no movement comes, and the parasite curls into a comfortable ball in the soul’s mighty throne.
Hours, days, even weeks pass by, and the host has simply become numb from everything. So much has beaten her down, she is unsure of how to even stand up. The body goes into automatic transmission, relaying information in and out, functioning as normal. The mind and the heart still function work as organs, apart from the confrontation between the soul and the parasite, but they are still intrinsically linked to the soul. Three in one they are, like the holy trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. However, without the soul, they can convey no depth.
While the parasite slumbers in its sacred place, the soul fortifies itself, encasing itself as well as the heart and original mind in a cocoon-like state for protection. While the parasite does little in the life of the little numb child we have come to know, it is always present–just there behind your conscience, between that dohickey and that thingamabob–feeding off every impure thought and action.
Every once in a blue moon, something will reach through the girl’s defenses. Through the fortifications and the walls, shattering everything she thought she knew, and grab ahold of that soft, sweet little heart. Then–right then!–at the parasite’s insistent protests, the most beautiful transformation will take place. The heart will race, the mind will soar, the soul will sing! Step by step, the layers of protection peel away, like an onion, until all that is left is light. The parasite will perish in the midst of such beauty of its own accord, unwilling to corrupt something so pure.
And thus, the soul is born anew.
It just takes some time, is all
Fish Eye Lens
Old things are magic, I think to myself, sitting in the middle of my garage, reading a worn library book. They take on the character of those who have used them. The saw hanging on that nail there distinctly speaks of the grandfather I never knew. Hardworking, honest, sharp. Worn, just so around the edges, that you can tell it has been loved. Although the room is warm, I could spend all day in here looking at these forgotten objects, foreign to me as the day I was born, hazed by the heat and enchanted by magic.
Magic. The word dances off my tongue, like a party trick, but the warbled sharp taste of it speaks more to me than any firecracker or illusion. Magic. What about it entrances us so, that the mere thought of it raises the baby hairs along our skin, corrupting its smooth surface? To be honest, I don’t know. I know exactly what is going to happen in the book I’m reading, The Life of Pi, and yet, the storytelling still manages to sweep me up and lose all rational thought. I am with Pi for every step of his story, so beautifully moving and deep, even if we walked together a thousand times before, I still find meaning and heart and joy in every word.
Magic promises something deeper, hinting at God, Allah, Brahman, Nirvana… The twinkle in a michevious friend’s eye, the last glints of summer’s last sunset over the Pacific, the breath of life rain gives to the desert… I can’t even fathom the beauty and depth this world has to offer.
I need a new camera to keep up with this new eye for beauty.
You’re Awful, I Love You
And thus, I finish high school. I sit around and do nothing during the week, because I have finished all my work. I do puzzles. I draw. I read. I don’t know how I really feel about this. Four months until September. Four months until I am whisked away into the wild blue yonder. I keep thinking, “If only I was already…” Wishing for life to speed up is a waste of time. A waste of everything. Everything just feels so complacent. Everyone else is stressing out, trying to get papers and projects and tests under wraps. And I’m spending my last weeks as a high school student napping in the sun and playing guitar. There’s something wrong with this picture…
At my appointment with my teacher on Thursday, this guy started talking to me. I’m a girl, and I do happen to notice that he’s cute, and likes good music. He kept talking about Flight of the Conchords, and his free tickets and GEEZE, this boy was totally flirting with me. Oh, good, he has a girlfriend! Then why is he still flirting with me? Carlos. Leave me alone, I’m taking a test. Leave me alone, I’m going to have an arranged marriage. Leave me alone, I don’t like boys.
Just marry me off already. Please.
I’m Not Talking Planets or Galaxies
Sixteen was an interesting year.
I graduated from high school. Well, basically. There were days when I wished that I didn’t get up at all, that I had just wasted away, staring at the ceiling, as well as the days when my soul sang for morning. There were dreams, thoughts, actions. There was a boy that was obsessed with me for the longest time; I didn’t really like him at all. I almost lost myself completely; yet I found truth, love, beauty, true family. I read books upon books; more importantly, I wrote. I laughed; I cried. I sang; I listened. I screamed; I whispered. I mourned; I smiled. I was everything and nothing, everywhere and nowhere. There were times when I stood tall, and others when I tumbled down. I was proclaimed a savior, and still needed to be saved.
I became myself.
As in Siddhartha, there is something truly beautiful in the collection of people I have been. Om. Perfection. That’s the goal, anyways. God’s instrument, God’s heart, God’s vessel.
I think it’s safe to say that I truly lived, for the first time during the past year. Something about birthdays makes me feel as if we should celebrate them as we celebrate New Years. They’re beautiful. I remember my grandma’s last birthday, before she passed. This was maybe two years ago, but I remember how radiant she looked. How happy she was to be living, even if the love of her life had already passed. She took so much joy from just seeing my smile, my brother’s hair, my sisters’ eyes…
I want to be like her.
Alive, even if she was a tiny little old lady on a tiny planet in our tiny solar system. She captivated my heart.
I love you, Grammy.
Anyways, I’m heralding in the true New Year by softly weeping to the playlist that I’ve titled “ALIVE”.
It’s a beautiful thing, living.
Lackadaisical Restlessness
When I worry, or think about things, my brow furrows, as if it were instinctual. I get this big–well, small, it’s only about half of an inch long–line running up my forehead from my left eyebrow. On any other day, this wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest.
Today was ridiculous. Things just kept piling on up. Emotional dump day. Spiritual dump day. Physical dump day. Everything just makes me want to crawl under my covers and go back to sleep.
Well, if it weren’t for the whacked out dreams I’ve been having lately. I always have pretty wacky dreams, but these have been ridiculous.
Fish people who burn in the sunlight, endless hallways of people I know passing me by as if they don’t know me until Tesia stops and grabs me and asks me if I’m alright and I tell her I’m tired and she nods and hugs me I fall asleep, bikes going off cartoonish jumps from rooftop to rooftop; a church event where I have to take care of this homeless girl, who keeps saying random things like “that boy is ugly” or sings a secular song the preacher mentions, and different people try to help me control her, but I lose track of her, and spend the rest of the dream searching, and searching; tag with shotguns; I’m a cop, investigating a potential crime scene, and this hick comes after me for “mocking” him, and I hide and run. Later, I have to take off my man disguise and pretend to be making up after a fight with this random girl on the beach who saw my gun and screamed so that the crazy guy will pass us by and he won’t shoot me, and my consciousness ends up switching between the cop and the girl, but it felt right?, and then I had to save a giant goldfish in the ocean for her.
There were more, but are just too damn weird to mention. O_o
Nutshell
Search Google, answer questions, put into this website:
http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php
1. What is your name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your hometown?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. What is your favorite movie?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What is one word to describe yourself?
10. How are you feeling right now?
11. What do you love most in the world?
12. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Psycha-dyke-ik!
This morning, I wake up and decided not to go to my Pre-Calc class. I have to finish Smoke and Mirrors, and send it away. I want to have enough time to finish it, reread it, edit it, and maybe let someone proof it really fast. Great idea, right? Wrong. Twenty minutes until class starts, and my mom tells me that I’m getting my ass to class. So, I get dressed, and don’t do anything stylistically to my hair. It looks fine, if not flat, so we leave.
Traffic’s bad, so my dad drops me off a block away from school. I walk through the parking lot, and these Mexican girls start looking at me and one of them says something like “hair… (Spanish words)…ugly.” And the other one takes another look, and whispers something like, “…dyke!”
UGH. This is not cool. If I want to wear my hair short, I will. Okay, so sure, gay women started this trend. It looks GOOD, and I give them props for it. They influence culture way more than gay men. Once again, props.
I don’t care what they think, but judging people is still NOT COOL.
Not everyone with an emo haircut is actually emo. They could be scene, or posers, or anything. Stop judging on appearance, girls. It makes you seem superficial, fake, and sex-obsessed.
…Then again, that’s probably because you are.
