Glimpses of a Past

Alone:

It's those moments alone. When the joy has faded, the anxiety of walking home alone has faded, the memory of being held secure has faded, and all that's left is reality. How does anyone get past this point? How can these questions not flood into the deep recess of a brain. "If I choose to, Would you try to, Understand?" The alone moments when the doubt comes and it's so much harder than being with someone. So much harder to see the other side of this gap. "Where sorrows melt like lemon drops." There is a depth that lingers in this solidarity. A depth that makes the first words hard to say, that makes beginning difficult. After the words start coming they just run and run like water down a cliff. Getting those words to start after silencing them for so long, that is what seems so impossible. "All I wanna do is turn around." Longing for a phone call, longing for a calm word that lingers to push away this loneliness. That's why he returned, because sometimes it gets lonely. Now why does he stay? What is this feeling? Am I once again alone?

Unnecessary:
I can’t even be mad at you anymore. I’m not mad at either of you. There is no part of me that wishes you pain, or dreams of revenge, but there is a part of me that now knows exactly what I’m worth in your eyes. Even though I can forgive you, and try to be happy and fine, the fact that to you I meant nothing, even for just those moments, tears me apart. I know that I don’t matter, to either of you. I matter in the lowest sense of the word; you don’t want trouble from me. And to you, you want to keep me around; it’s easier when you know I’m right there when you need me. But I no longer look at myself the same way. I am so very replaceable, transparent, unnecessary. By being who I am I have made myself so very unnecessary. I am easy, I am useful, but I am easily ignored until a calamity arises. I hate that you don’t care. I hate that to you it means nothing. You treated me as you said you never would, you have become another on a long list. And now, I just want to forget. Forget that I care, forget that you matter, forget every word, every laugh, every moment. Forget that I was once someone else, and once again, become someone new. I am who you want me to be, but who neither of us want. It’s funny how it works out that way.

Inspiration
Inspiration is a funny thing. It seems to float, in and out of life, across continents, through different people. It comes in the form of a beautifully painted picture, or a wonderful photograph, or a cascading sunset, or the innocent smile of a child. Inspiration folds around the corners of isolation, and around the spikes of anger. It enters the depth of sadness and the heights of joy. It penetrates into the minds of the strong, and gently pulls at the weary. Sometimes, it comes in the form of a song. The symphony’s of Beethoven, the guitar riffs of Jimi Hendrix, the harmonies of a choir, the range of Imogen Heap, the tearfully sung lyrics of Conor Oberst.
“You’re the yellow bird that I’ve been waiting for.” How many pages of writing has that line inspired? How many photographs? How many broken hearts? More than a novel’s worth, more than an album’s worth, more than one.
Inspiration, it’s a funny thing. It evacuates and escapes before it should. It arrives in the unexpected moments, it hands the opposite of what was meant to be said. Sometimes it protects, and sometimes it cuts and tears. It’s the written form of hope. If hope “is the thing with feathers,” inspiration is the feathers.

Have I ever told you? You are the one for me. You are the reason I'm still here, the reason I didn't drive to Montauk and buy a beach house. You're the reason I'm still stuck in this landlocked place with winters that chill to the bone. I'm here and I'm waiting, just like I have been for the past three years. You are for me, not for anyone else, for me. So what are you doing? What could you be thinking?
She will not wait as I have, she will not hope the way I have hoped, she will not dream the way I dream, she will not completely take you as you are with the bad and the good, she isn't me.
You are for me, just as I have always been for you.

When I should be writing Grad essays

The process of learning is a constantly shifting sea. Some days are calm, information coming in smooth with each pull of the oar. But some days are a tempest of waves. The information coming on so fast that the boat feels as if it will sink. It shakes, beliefs and values being pummeled by the wind of new facts, the old crew drowning in countless waves of contradicting information.
And sometimes, knowledge wrecks the boat, sends it crashing on the reefs of some lonely island. Then the crew must start to rebuild, trying to find the pieces that can be salvaged. They pull out some of the planks, ropes, maybe even the mast, and then begin the hunt for wood to rebuild the boat. Choosing stronger wood, praying that when they are done it will not wreck again. Searching through the jungle for the best parts they can find.
Even though the boat has wrecked, they gladly work, side by side. The work and work until a new boat has been finished and ready to sail. Then they get back on board and prepare to continue the voyage ahead. They do this because they know that the lands they have yet to reach are worth sailing for, are worth wrecking for, are worth changing for. They sail on to a new day, a new adventure, maybe even a new storm.

The Dream

I dreamed that you had ceased to love me—
not that you had come from other beds
back to mine, or gone from mine to others,
just that something in your heart had stopped.

I willed myself awake to find you still
beside me. It was just a dream, I thought,
yet when I turned to kiss you, in your eyes
I saw that you had ceased to love me.

I willed myself awake a second time
to find myself alone, as I have been
these many months, but did not know if it
was terror or relief I felt, and whether

dreams unfold the past or make the future
plain. I dreamed that you had ceased to love me,
and know when I see nothing in your eyes
I can't dream myself awake a third time.

-David Solway

Mi Familia

Most days I wake up and miss my family, but today it was different. A deep, dark ache in my heart. A feeling that no one knows quite how I feel except them, and they are so very far away. I think about how my back aches and my eyes are tired, how I'm trying too hard to look cute in my own way, how those three finals are piling up on me and I have to well: too big of dreams not to do well. I think about how my couch back home is the perfect length and comfort and how the couch here is half size to fit in my half sized apartment. How if I was home I could fall asleep on the couch and wake up to music playing on the stereo, the smell of my mother's wonderful cooking, and the darkened Taiwan sky. If I was home we would eat and talk and play a game or watch a show all together. I would come into their room while they were reading before bed and lay down and talk until they kicked me out so they could sleep.

But I am not home, I am not with my family, I am here, alone. 

I don't do well being alone, I'm bad at it. It doesn't suit my nature. Yet here I am, doing what I need to do, being alone. Looking at the heeled boots I bought online with fur around the top. Me, in fur, trying to be something I could be, but right now, I don't want to be.

I don't want to be responsible, I don't want to be sophisticated, I don't want to be trying so hard; I want to be home and young and loved and surrounded by warmth.

Mi corazón pertenece a mi familia

If - Rudyard Kipling

"If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"

I love the way your hair parts straight down the middle, and how when you lost those thirty pounds you wore your old clothes and looked like a shrunken doll. I love the way you trip over your own feet, and pick apart your food before you eat it. I love how you talk passionately about things most people don't care about. I love the way you light up when you see people you love.
But I hate that you will never know this.
I hate that I will never get to love how much you love me.

Why are you panicking? I can feel it. The tension and confusion rumbling through your ever spinning mind. Where did it come from? So sudden and seeping. Overpowering slowly, the intensity making everything worse. Knowing that it won't get better yet. When did this begin? How much longer do you have to go?
Sometimes are you so afraid?

I am. I don't even know why most of the time. It arrives and the world has become too big. And I, I have become far too small. The light is garish and the walls are cold. I am no longer a tree, I am a weed, about to be pulled. I am no longer a sunflower, I am a violet. Tiny, about to be stepped on. Washed out purple instead of ginormous brilliant yellow. Where am I? Where have I gone?

Maybe I'll sleep now, and maybe tomorrow you'll be back, and I'll be back. We'll be back. "It will be okay, everything will be okay." I don't know who I'm trying to reassure anymore. Maybe both of us and maybe neither. I am saying nothing. I am disappearing. Someone see me! Someone really, truly see me!

Tonight I pray that this panic subsides and once again, we are found.

The Beginning of the End

"All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end."
-Peter Pan

The question

I need to know if anyone else feels it too. Like What Sarah Said mixed with Damien Rice and a few heartfelt screams. I need to know  because it seems like all the loving faces are smiling smiles of honest emptiness. Am I the only one? Do you feel it too? Has anyone really found it or are we all just tired of hurting and getting hurt. Do we finally say enough is enough, I've been doing this too long, time to give up. Have you found what I'm looking for? And will I ever find it? This deep solid confusion and loneliness is growing. I need to know. Who has my answer?

The question was who would I be for a day, I'd be anyone truly loved and contently happy. That's what I who I wish to be.

tu·mul·tu·ous

adjective /t(y)o͞oˈməlCHo͞oəs/  /tə-/  Making a loud, confused noise; uproarious - tumultuous applause Excited, confused, or disorderly - a tumultuous crowd - a tumultuous personal life

Dear World,

I’m trying hard to be brave but it’s hard when everything means starting all over. I should be excited, but the thought of being alone is so overwhelming that I don’t even know how to face it. Maybe this is a mistake, but I somehow know it’s not. Clarity, I know one of you at least has been praying for clarity, because I think I finally found it.
I don’t know if I can do this, but I know it’s the right thing to do. I know it’s what I should do. Thank you.

Ps, if this all works out right, I’ll have happy news soon.

Love, Teri Sue

I have phone conversations with you in my head.

They probably will never happen because the thought of actually calling you makes my hand shake a little, but my imagination does pretty well. You’re always so sensible on these calls. So grounded. I’ve told you this before, haven’t I? That you’re a rock in my world, so steady and solid while everything else seems to fly around you. On the phone I hear your laugh, and I know its all okay. I see that I’m blowing it all out of proportion because it is so incredibly obvious to you. Just as right and wrong always seem so obvious to you. In these conversations we talk effortlessly, words spilling out of my mouth and reactions forming from yours. Everything begins to make sense, I put the pictures together, and I know the reason why we are so unlucky. We are unlucky because we got off center when we weren’t given a chance. When that chance was pulled away by my doubts and my insecurities and my foolishness, it knocked the planet just enough to give us both bad luck. We could fix it, you realize this, right? If you could give me one more chance; I know I could fix it. Over the phone in my head, we do fix it, and before we hang up we both know that soon, so very soon, we will talk again. And the world returns to spin on axis.

It should be well

If peace like a river came my way

And sorrows ceased now to roll

Would the beauty begin to fade away

With no pain left to cause it to stay?

If in a mighty fortress I could live

A bulwark that never fell

Would I waste away from lack of pain

Would I forget the feel of lost love’s stains?

If I were there ten thousand years

Everything shining like the sun

Would I remember what tears brought me there

Or would I sing on forgetting that I once cared?

If the lepers spots were truly changed

And this heart of stone were melted

Would I know all my days

That love is the only thing that remains?

If all fears were finally stilled

And strivings could forever cease

Would the lack of struggle bind me down

Causing me to slowly drown?

Would I always wonder

What pain could make me see?

Would I always feel

Like I wasn’t truly free?

Or is it possible to have enough

Of good to fill this hole

Is there a way to truly sing,

“It is well, with my soul.”

Rain

The rain of Taiwan isn't like the rain of Indiana. When it begins it smells so sweet and the air gets sickly sticky with humidity. The dark clouds roll in and dump out their troubles onto the earth and then leave tired, as if exhausted from a good cry. Leaving behind a dirty, wet smell and a heat that threatens to drown whoever might be walking in it. Here there is no smell before it rains, and the humidity doesn’t precede the dark clouds. Instead the rain is isolated. Alone in its feel, smell, look. When the sun comes up the air dries and the pavement turns back to a dull grey. In Taiwan everything is connected, the rain is felt before it begins, the storm is sensed even after it has left. In Indiana the rain startles, and when it ends it is almost as if it never happened.

“Maybe I was made this way,

To think and to reason and to question and to pray,

And I have never prayed a lot,

But maybe there’s a loving God.”

Written on Receipts

For lunch we had muffins. Big fat ones filled with blueberries and bananas and oatmeal. We argued over which was healthier bananas and oatmeal or the blueberries, deciding in the end that our raspberry, lemon teas were probably the least healthy of all. I remember your big sunglasses and deeply red lipstick, and wishing I was even close to as brave as you. Later, we walked down to an antique store where you filled your arms with anything that had owls on it. You always knew what you wanted. Sometimes I wonder if you remember that day. If I had your number I’d call and ask. I’d call and say, “I looked it up, mine was healthier.” And hopefully you’d laugh.

http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/247417_10150213705674681_515794680_7201251_4205885_n.jpg

I want to be driving all through the night, and as the sun begins to rise, arrive at the ocean. I want to lay in the sand and swim in the sea and feel the salty wind blow around me. I want the sun to beat down on my skin and the birds to call far above me. And most of all, I want to be there with you. I want to be worth the drive, worth the heat, worth the sand piling everywhere. I want to be there, at the ocean, where it feels like home.