Month: November 2017

My father is my best friend.

He’s the most avid reader you’ve ever met; he reads about three books a week.  To add onto that, he reads articles and articles of anything you could think of, sending me gifs out of nowhere of things like “king rats” with an article attached about them.

He always supports me in anything and everything I want to do.  When I started playing soccer, he went to classes to learn how to become a coach.  He studied and researched it into startling depths, where he was sending me packets of research every week on working out.  He forced me to go out into the yard with him and practice, even when I was young and sulky.

He read my first piece of writing when I was six.  It was some nothing about frogs, and they caught a fly that turned out to be a bomb.  I didn’t know how to use pronouns, and it was hard to read.  It didn’t matter.  He saw the potential in it.  In fifth grade, my teacher made me do a personal essay.  I blew it out of proportion, writing almost forty pages.  My dad read every page almost three times.  He still brings it up to this day with marvel in his eyes.

He got so excited about everything I wrote, no matter how terrible it was.  It didn’t matter, because I was trying.  Being such an avid reader, he always wanted to write more than anything else, and he had wonderful and bright ideas, but he never could put them down on paper.  He was too self-conscious.  He supported me in every way possible with it, even making me listen to really lame audio books.

My father wanted to be a professor in Geology before I was born.  He was already with my mother, taking care of her two children from a previous relationship.  He didn’t have to take care of Aislynn and Arianna, my two half-sisters (not that it made us any less close), but he chose to.  He worked odd jobs to support everyone, but when my mom got pregnant with me, he had to drop out with only a Bachelor’s degree.  It was just months before he gained his Master’s.

There are certain memories of him that I’ve found playing in my head lately.  Like how he would rant on absolutely anything he found interesting for two hours, just like a true professor.  I remember when he told me last month that his IQ was of genius level; then he told me not to tell my mother to spare her feelings.

Most of all, though, I remember when I was ten.  I was convinced my father knew absolutely everything, and he was never wrong.  We were making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  He told me you should always use peanut butter first with the butter knife, because otherwise jelly gets in the peanut butter, and jelly has to go in the fridge while peanut butter goes in the pantry.  I told him jelly was easier to wipe off, and it was so miniscule that it didn’t matter anyways.  He agreed with me.  That is the first time I considered that my father was not some all-knowing being.

He does the oddest jobs, like he built an Indian fireplace the other month that doesn’t create smoke for no reason.  It was the hardest thing to build, but it didn’t matter.  He enjoyed learning about it and doing it.

My father is the most fantastic person I have ever known.

I can’t stress this enough: STOP SEXUALIZING CHILDREN!! I’ve seen far too many movies where children under the age of 16 have been in sexual situations and made out out to be the ringleader of the whole show. Although I enjoyed the movie, I later realized the bigger picture. Movies such as Lolita and Pretty Baby have two female leads who are subject to sexualization and statutory rape of men and the scenes are set in a way that makes it seem like the girls wanted it. Children are in now way mentally or physically prepared for those activities.

These movies make Pedophilia seem natural, like nothing is wrong with the act of preying on young girls. It’s immoral and cannot be justified in any sense.

Innocent children should not be exposed to sexualization and grown men and women shouldn’t even think that that’s acceptable. It’s seen in more than movies. Hugh Hefner had two magazine pages of young girls, around 8-10 years old, partially or completely revealed. In no way should that have ever been printed, purchased, or socially accepted.

I feel as if i’m ranting more than getting my point across, but nevertheless, the sexualization of children is wrong but often done for cinematic and other entertainment purposes.

 

http://www.onlinefmradio.in/videos/showvideo/Lolita-1997-Full-Movie-x6kLJVytJY1i and Pretty Baby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HczuLC4v9DM

 

empty room // arcade fire

i was always alone.

even when i was surrounded by my friends, all i ever felt was alone. i could call someone’s name at the top of my lungs in a room full of people, but the room was always still somehow empty, like no one was even there at all.

suburbia left me in isolation, craving something more. it left me desiring something bigger than small town feelings.

i knew it was coming. i knew one day something would come along and pluck me from the suburbs and plant me where i belonged. for seven years i waited and waited, sitting in empty rooms and rooms only filled with empty lives.

when i was younger, everyone older than me looked like they were on fire. they looked fiery and inspired and passionate. in fourth and fifth grade, my friend down the street and i always looked up to her older sister. she was two years older than us and wiser than we could ever dream of being. our elementary paled in comparison to her middle school wisdom.

honestly, she intimidated us. we always wondered what it was like to be that old, to be that grown up. the way she walked and the way she talked left us wondering what growing up would look like for us.

then we were the ones growing up. only the girl down the street and i didn’t talk anymore. we were the intimidating middle schoolers to the little kids in the neighborhood, and i realized that her sister wasn’t on fire anymore. the sparks were gone and all that was left was the same grey that would take me over if i let it.

but i wasn’t going to let it. i wasn’t going to let growing up empty my soul out and turn me into a ghost of suburban future. i wasn’t going to let the emptiness that consumed them consume me, too.

so i laid low. i let them paint me over with their blacks and greys and pretended to be like them, but they could never touch the colors that coated my insides. i was going to grow up, but it wouldn’t be like them. i wasn’t going to become the people i’ve watched fall away time and time again. all i had to do was wait, and if it took forever, then forever it would be.

There is earth in your teeth. Lighter in palm. There is running. You wipe your brow and swallow gravel. Again. A brush past through hallway corridors. Sweet copper lines down your chin. They call you Red. They do not have eyes.

Flipping through magazine pages. Cut. Strands of silk fall through the paper. Into your hands. The eyes of a cat, one nose from a woman advertising her cheeks. Or her lips. Or the gloss coating them. You cannot tell.

Schoolbooks beat like butterfly wings against your ribcage. Everything painted in blue. So much blue it burns. There is a clap of lighting outside and it does not startle you. You present a poster with glitter glue and Ronald Regan facts. The glitter melts on your tongue.

People taste how empty feels.

You are saturated. You are the crater on the dirt where the sea used to be. Someone has eaten the ocean.

A mother washes dishes. A dancer’s grace (fallen down). The windowsill light casts halos above her brow. You rock back and forth, forth and back on the bathroom floor when she sleeps. You pull the word “afraid” from your throat as you shake. It comes tumbling out like string. The walls crumble like cardboard houses. It all feels terribly real.

A broken bottle slices your tongue when you blink. One, two, three. Blink-black brittle-bloody-dropping-down-again- again.

The mirror by your bed has hands. Clinging to  the corners, stretching the edges so you fit between. You are too whole. You bite off a piece of arm, a tear of skin around the ears. You stick it to your bedroom wall. It slides down to the carpet within the week. The dust mites piece you back together. Stiches snug.

This brain tugs taut as needle and thread. Another whisper of smoke. Cigarette kiss. Welcome in the hurt the way you pray. Be silent when you scream. Cry. Eyeballs freeze with winter weather. Slit your body through. Bleed out on the hardwood floors. The stains. They call you Red.

They do not have eyes.

You say you love her. Spit it out.

The glass between our faces will break one day. You keep tapping.

Tiptoe over trauma and bury dog bones. Visit once a day. Stop visiting when it snows. What about promises? Perception. Prove a point. Be mindful to be forgetful. You cannot find a good song to fit this. No emotion. Black hole looming and crunch-

the bones are broken now.

Include you. Include you. Need you. No one needs this. Vanilla smile and warm milk. Sickness is a state of mind.

You sleep below a motel bed. The world is shuddering. Holy is a brutal word.

No one can make you say it. No one can make you do anything. You read a Bible once; you could’ve done better. No matter. When the air congeals, when the birds fall dead mid- flight, they will know.

They will all know one day.

What a terrifying thought.

We meet beneath streetlights. They break our bodies orange. I kill my fears by kissing them upon your palms.  You share secrets. Ears are disintegrating. Your knuckles protrude. Angel- white.

The sun stopped working today. We tried shaking it, you put it in rice. Nothing changed. Not even a flicker.

You  stay miserable and underneath wet blankets.

You feel heavy. Heavy feels alone.

 

 

 

 

Here’s the thing: I really enjoy writing blogs. I like that the whole class and the seniors can see them if they want to. The point of the blogs is to be able to share what you’ve experienced and tell your opinion on matters.

This is my whole problem with having to have a certain amount done a week. I can watch the news all day long and still not feel like I have something to comment on or tell my opinion about. I’ve been alive for seventeen years but that doesn’t mean I have a plethora of stories that I think are blog worthy. I like to put a lot of effort into the topics of my blogs and even more effort into the research I do for the blogs I do when I comment on today’s events.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m stuck on campus, unable to hear and see new things or talk to new people. I can’t hear their stories or opinions, which is where I get a lot of my story prompts from. It makes it more difficult to get the full extent of a story or concept, when there’s no one to compare with.

Also, I don’t like constantly writing about sad and dark things that make you stare at the wall or forget how to come up with a sentence. I like writing about happy things that make people smile or at least not feel so down about life. And with my usual writing it’s usually the first of the two that ends up happening inadvertently, which is not my intention, so it takes extra time to convey my stories/poems/opinions in upbeat terms.

In saying that, it kind of makes it look like I’m coming up with excuses, which I might subconsciously be doing, but not on purpose. I tend to take a lot of pride in my writing, despite what I say, and I want it to be the best it can be. I want people to really think and remember what I’ve given them. It sounds like I’m being a attention seeker or that my writing’s worth depends on the accounts of others but that is also not what I’m trying to say. It’s just, if someone is going to take the time to read something of mine, I want it to be worth it.

This blog is sort of all over the place, but I feel like it tells what I’m trying to get across. Hopefully.

 

Blissful Things I Love About Autumn 

(And The Songs I Associate With Them)

• Over-sized Sweaters
• Fuzzy Socks
• Pumpkin Patches
• Carving Pumpkins
• Hot Chocolate
• Tea
• Fall Candles
• Halloween
• Discount Halloween Candy
• Apple Picking
• Camping
• Hiking 
• Bonfires
• Thanksgiving
• Football Games 
• Scenic Drives 

 

I talk to myself and it isn’t just running into a wall and screaming that I’m an idiot, because I had already done it three times that day and it was getting kinda ridiculous. No. When I talk to myself I do it everyday and all day. Full conversations. I talk about my feelings to myself and I would give myself advice. I would talk about how strange a person may look and go back in forth in my own mind about if that person is pretty or not. I have conversations to people who i know and its as if they are there when they are not. Sometimes it gets distracting when I talk to myself during a test about if dinosaurs really existed, test forgotten, and mind wandering. And before I know it the bell rings and I get nothing done. Sometimes the voice I hear that talks back isn’t even mine, but this other girl talking back, and we talk for hours and days and sometimes before I go to bed I have a habit of  saying Goodnight to be polite. She says it back, and I fall sleep feeling content that I made friends with this me. Who I had stopped calling me because that’s rude instead I give her another name “Cecil”. This girl, who I am fully aware that is me is nice, she is kind, argumentative at times, but seems to pop up at my most depressed times or my most lonely but now a days exist in every state I am in. And I can’t call her an imaginary friend, because I can’t see her. I can just listen to her and if anything, I believe that’s better. Now, I have looked this up repeatedly. Trying to pinpoint why I do this and if anyone else has done this kind of thing before. When I did I found out that yes people do. But I could never find someone who did it exactly like I did which was strange, but could also be the case of people not wanting to say anything from fear of being called out. I’m fine with that honestly, I accept that reality. But no, I’m not crazy, I don’t think so at least. I believe this is more of a coping mechanism. When I was younger and preferred playing with my siblings who at the times were too busy or my parents who had to work more often than not. So, what else could a child do but talk to herself day in and day out to keep from feeling sad and lonely? So, I grew up like that and even when I was getting attention talking to myself never did phase out of existence if anything, it heightened to a much larger level. Because I realized that the only person who would listen to me would be me. So now it seems that I am stuck in this eternal battle with myself who I can’t shake because without this I feel like the world would implode and I would truly be alone. When i would force myself to stop listening the quite would be suffocating. The world would come into such a sharp focus that i seemed to be split between the desolate and the sporadic. I would always go back to myself and the voice that seemed to soothe my head and carry me back into the hazy world that has no real consequences or concrete facts. I liked that me better.

I am sitting in a boat in the middle of a lake.  I have no oars, but I have something in my pocket.  It is sunset.  The black silhouettes of trees pop-out against the sky which is a kaleidoscopic mish-mash of oranges, reds, and purples.  With every passing minute, the harsh reds slowly fade away to be replaced by deep purples and blues.  I am waiting for the sun to disappear, and you do not know why.

I hold all of the power in the world.  No, not in my pocket, but in my hands that type this story.  You know not why I am sitting here in this boat.  You don’t know how I got here.  You don’t know why I am waiting for the night to fall, and you don’t know what will happen when it does.  You don’t even know what I have hidden away in my pocket, but I have a secret, I don’t know either.  I created this scenario, but I have yet to create the steps that brought me to the center of this lake.  I seem as powerless as you to destiny then, don’t I?  Well, that’s where you’re wrong.

I am this world’s sculptor.  I took clay made of ideas and shaped it into an insanely, insignificantly minute moment that is in itself, so much.  In a life, this moment could be one of the most important moments, but in the course of the universe, it would change nothing.  This contrast of importance split by reality and perception really fascinates me.  Not only is this story that to the characters but to myself.  I have come to a realization in writing this that has somewhat altered my idea of life’s finity.  I know that this does not affect the universe at large in any way, but that’s part of the realization.

I stand up in the boat.  I feel almost as if there are eyes on me.  I turn all around, but find only that I am completely alone.  I reach into my pocket.  The sky is now completely dark.  My hand touches something, and my fingers wrap slowly around it.  I pull it out fiercely and hurl it into the water where it immediately sinks.  The glass-top lake is shattered with fierce ripples that gradually smooth out.  I sit back down in the boat, staring at the sky, and wait until I am a part of it.  I’m still waiting.

I miss being five years old. I miss having no worries in the world other than finding a way to get out of eating my peas at dinner that night. I miss it being acceptable to take a nap during school, when we couldn’t be penalized for being tired because we woke up at the crack of dawn to go to class. I miss being friends with everyone because when you’re a kid, everyone gets along with one another, when there was no such thing as society’s standards in our minds. I miss being able to go to sleep at seven at night and wake up absolutely fine in the morning – no insomnia-filled nights where it feels as though sleeping will only be something I do when I die. I miss when the worst thing you could do to a person was stick your tongue out at them and not share any of your Popsicle. I miss when the world was filled with people who actually interacted with one another, rather than scrolling through social media all day, their noses buried in their phones (which I admit I do as well). I miss when my days consisted of eating, sleeping, sitting down with my family and going right back to sleep again. I miss having absolutely no reason to stress; hell, I miss not even knowing what stress is. I miss not even knowing about the existence of anxiety and panic attacks and depression and suicide. I want to wake up and not have the one thing I look forward to be the weekend so that I can just sit back and do pretty much nothing. I miss when I did not hate my body because it belonged to a “young woman.” I want to go back to when politics did not even exist to me because I was too young to know what they were, when TV was just a thing that you watched for entertainment and I did not get emotionally attached to fictional characters that I cry over when they die. I miss when we were all brutally honest with one another because children’s mouths have no filter, and we got to actually sleep when we were tired. I want to go back to a time where the biggest issue was if I colored inside the lines, rather than if I accidentally used cosine instead of tangent or the formula for gravitational potential energy as a substitute for that of kinetic energy. I miss the simpler times, when there was no fear of growing up and being on my own in just a matter of years and having to get a job probably within the next few months because I’m legally old enough to now. The time when our problems consisted of how many cookies we could have after dinner and how late we could get our parents to let us stay up – maybe past ten if you’re lucky. Man, do I wish I could go back.