When is the revolution?

Are split ends a First World problem?
The mess in my room is a First World problem.
A result of excess, available through the acquisition of necessities no longer essential
To my ability to thrive.
My stockpile of half-empty
Makeup containers
Awaiting the day they'll be used
Is a First World problem,
Along with my inability to decide
Which sweater isn't worth saving--for now I'll keep them all in a bag
Until the seasons change, when the assumption of "need" is returned.
Finding broken hangers is a First World problem.
Perfume so old and unused its scent is no longer worth the price is a First World problem.

The problem with the First World is that they define all hiccups as problems.
I, in fact, was once told my hiccups were a problem.
An inconvenience due to the unobtrusive, minuscule sound
That popped from my body, hushed, muted, muffled in undertones;
But still my abnormality of normality
Was a nuisance and a problem
Of which I should be aware.

Fix what's wrong here first, they say,
Let's cure the disease at home first,
As they dedicate their time sorting endless rooms full of objects
And picking at and breaking split ends.

Now is the winter of our dis...content

I haven't done a lot of writing. And I don't just mean on this blog. It has slipped to the sidelines of interest, it seems, which is sad because words still remain my favorite.

I've been feeling....ick for the past few days, in a spiritual/psychological sense, not the sort of ick that accompaccompanies a burning forehead or a doubled-over-on-the-couch stomach agony.

I don't know, it just seems to me that when you're frustrated with the things that make you happiest, something's wrong. And I used to purge this feeling with words. So here we are.


I'm sorry I've been bitter or brutal, biting, bland.
I'm sorry if I've portrayed the friend then withdrew my hand.
I'm sorry I don't feel the way I did when I was lost
And you looked like forever holding me for naught.
I'm sorry you frustrate me so much I can't articulate it
And that my perception of the universe isn't what you'd make of it.
I'm sorry I just rhymed a word with itself
And that I set it up to slant rhyme with this.^
I won't do it.


Now is an appropriate time to remind the reader I blog because it's cathartic for me to know my words are out there, being read, and thus it's not always the immaculate nature of the words that I am seeking. So...Deal. If you want perfection try finding a post titled an actual title. Cuz this one will probably be "another untitled."

*Because. I'm trying to stop this bad grammar thing.

I'm noticing I get unhappy when I need change. Maybe that's for humanity in general, I wouldn't know, I only presume to know through the power of the pen and the stage. I've been frustrated with improv, feeling like, while I'm getting better, I somehow missed the migration to this different island and everyone is over there doing their thing and I'm on my island doing mine, and it's not bad for the island but I'm missing nuances that everyone else has from the New island and am just standing over there going What?

(Cassie and I decided my Amy Poehler-esque memoir would be titled Life Is One Run-On Sentence. Copyright is pending. I only mention it so in the likelihood this year is my last and someone wants to publish my genius, it would be on record what I would have it called.)

And I say this with the trepidation that those closely associated with me might read it, but my friends are very frustrating to me. It's not anything they're doing, it's me, it's all me, but for whatever reason my tolerance for these people I adore is skewed in such a way that I fear I've been very curt to some of them unintentionally, for which I apologize. It's just...it's getting that way again. This seeping unhappiness and dissatisfaction for life, but this time there's nothing to blame it on. There's no non-reciprocating love interest, no No-I'm-actually-over-this non-reciprocating love interest. There's no People-were-getting-famous-with-their-genius-skills-at-my-age, no Why-can't-this-just-be-reciprocated? non-reciprocating love interest. There's non of that. There's almost an apathy for that, for all of it, but the apathy isn't the problem. There isn't a problem. I'm not happy.

And it's not the weather because I was more on edge at the dessert December than I was at the bite of winter's chill so hold off on the belittling weather remarks.

And I'm not posting this for you to comment and fix me. I'm posting because the posting does the fixing. It's voicing all these stupid apparently-hyphenated remarks and musings and stumblings so I can wake up tomorrow and say It's because you don't have a sleep schedule anymore, doofus.

And maybe that's it. This will be a good year. I'm not bad at everything I'm good at. Even if that sentence is a trick to make sense of. Try turning it off then back on again. January 1st is the restart for your system. Do not shut down or unplug until updates are installed, just take a moment, take a breath, take a nap.

Who knows, maybe the best hasn't happened yet.

Discography

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a product of my music interest, or if my music interest is just a side effect to who I am.

Let me explain.

Young Erica listened to a cassette tape of Kenny Loggins singing children's songs and lullabies. I don't mean this in a The Wiggles kind of way. They were calm, peaceful, almost folk songs.

It's where I met Pooh Corner, unicorns, comets, horses, and the existence of other cultures (as exhibited in To-Ra-Loo-Ra). They gave me this calmness, this widening of the mind. I started making music videos in my head to this music, before knowing music videos were really a thing, that video had ever killed the radio star, before knowing an artist could record songs they hadn't written. I learned the words painted the pictures I would see in my head. And I liked it.

Young Erica found another album in her mother's collection. She'd stolen Kenny Loggins, and returned for more. It's this album that I believe did it, this album that made my above mentioned speculation evident.

I think about this album a lot, especially lately. Because it made me think. And that's the key. Kenny Loggins drove my mind across the sky with St. Judy's comet and through forest glades with the last unicorn, but Sixpence None the Richer made me think. I didn't know what it meant. And it was frustrating. I didn't know what inconsistent angel things were, how a womb could be artistic, who "she" was in 'Sister, Mother.' I didn't get it. I was left to figure it out, and when I learned to read I read through the lyrics printed in the cover. But I still didn't know. This album is heavy on imagery, metaphor; it's poetry. It's an album of poems, and the answers are hidden in subtext and verbiage and unique to the listener. It's words painting pictures.

I have an odd reverence for words. You've probably gleaned as much if you've read this blog before. My favorite thing about Kenny Loggins wasn't his voice or the beautiful album art. It was the words, the story. I was devastated when I read who'd written the songs and saw Leigh Nash was only responsible for one of them; I felt cheated her lips were speaking someone else's words. The thing I loved most, and what still remains the deciding factor, about Jason Mraz was his words.

It had to come to this. He released an album Tuesday. Why else would we be here?

In the past couple of years I've let go of my tight grip on lyrics to hear the themes in the music itself. It started with Jason Mraz. I'd heard his songs so much the words were already ingrained in my subconscious, so I started feeling the beat, started noticing the way the rifts changed, started hearing the layers. Music has become a new journey for me; I've realized it's not just the words, but the way they play with the music. Hearing Mraz for those first months was incredible because each time I heard a song again I'd get new insight into what words he was using, what he was truly saying. When that went away I started having epiphanies about the melodies.

And now back to my musing at the first: am I a product of my music, or do I have this taste because of who I am?

Where's the causation? Is there any?

I've often attributed my prose style to Sixpence None the Richer, claiming the album introduced me to words that masked what they meant, thus giving me the natural knack I have for spewing imagery. I'd been raised on it. But as the last few months have gone on, I've found myself slipping back into my old tastes as far as music goes. I've ventured off to Indie and Alternative Pop, but I'm tucking myself back into acoustic folk pop. I turn a happier ear to the music reminiscent of that first album, the mystique and metaphor on which I was raised. And I'm aware now that it's more than the words I appreciate; I've noticed a distinct similarity between the two. I've always said I like the music I like because the words are usually more akin to what I'm interested in. Which is mostly true. But there's been many a song I've enjoyed for lyrics and felt so-so as far as music goes. (A certain duet between Eminem and Rihanna comes to mind.) And a couple albums with instrumental tracks have taught me that music can speak without words. Willis showed me a Japanese artist whose songs hit me very deeply, but I don't speak Japanese.

Then Wednesday happened. Yes! came in the mail a day late, and after I enjoyed my new t-shirt, notebook, and poster, I popped in the album and leaned back on my bed to let Jason Mraz's latest work envelop me for the first time.

It's a meadow. It's soft clouds lilted by the pink hues of a setting sun breathing through branches accompanied by a faint breeze. It's sand flaking out to sea as the waves roll over it lightly. It's nature. It's peace. It's beauty. I hesitate to say it's my favorite album only because it's so new, and of course his newest endeavor is my favorite. I said this of his last installment, Love is a Four Letter Word.

But it's the difference of this album to every other that makes it hit me in such a unique way. I'm well versed in his music, and I recall lying there, listening to this album for the first time thinking how I love how he has changed. This sound is something I couldn't place in his past. But I could place it in mine.

If I'm a product of my music interest, Yes! is my current Sixpence None the Richer, an album for another decade of life. If my music interest is a side effect of who I am, this is another album I'll be yapping about for months. Because it is me. It is everything my heart wants. It's like coming home. And I try not to say this in the cheesiest ways, and hope I've made a fragment of sense this entire post. I just wonder if this album would speak to me in the way it does if I'd grown up with a different introduction to the realm of music. I wonder if I'd be who I am if it weren't for that first album, and for the albums that have followed. In the way I wonder if I'd be fundamentally the same if I hadn't been raised in the Church, I wonder if music has made me what I've become. Music is a gospel, after all. As Matt Nathanson sings, "I found religion at the record store." I lost myself in the melody and found myself in the words.

Noche Nada

The sand cushions out around my soles, miniature billows of apocalyptic ash clouds, swarming a plague of ruin centimeters from my footfalls. It leaves a swan song in the fabric of my sneakers, a remnant of a lost time, holding out for the uncovering of archaeologists to comb and caress and discover why. I watch the sun glint along above me, a tracking system in the sky mapping my every move, hiding behind a canopy, leaving tattoos of shadows along my body.

I think about the way the clouds told me stories over the course of a day, an elongated sitcom sans subtitles. And there are breezes reminding me to breathe, and the steady heartbeat of my steps clarifies there's somewhere worth getting to, there's reason worth walking. And some sunset from now I'll find the mouth of a waterfall or a crystal blue lake and sit on the bank on a rock not smooth enough and know I'm home. But that's a sunset, miles away, and there are moons and dawns between. There's the breeze, the clouds, the checkerboard shade, and my feet carrying me through and beyond, leaving the path clear, muddled only by settled tsunamis of dust.

yet another untitled.

I can't imagine living
Where the seasons are the same;
My life would be so bitter
If I never had the change.
There's lightness in the snow that falls
And joy within the rain,
And a summer night is nothing short
Of healing spring's faint pain.

Each season gives a rinse, a dry,
To the way in which I'm seen:
Like a Sunday afternoon where
My spirit comes out clean.
I can't imagine living with
No sustenance, no change;
Where I am stuck with who I was
Before the water came.

There are other things.

"There are other things for us."
She said, staring down the barrel of a gun.
"There are other reasons we're standing here,
other songs that should be sung."
And the weapon's fired,
The clock's expired
And I find myself break a run,
Toward yesterday's
And far-aways
I'd never thought would come.

Until at moment's last, the summer smiles
In the soft ray of light from a moon
And I can't keep up the motion of
Breath having died too soon.
We struggle with our paces
And defend worried faces,
Praying all will soften to a swoon
When the owls cry
And ends are nigh
And never crests from gloom.

Don't pity him,
Don't pity me,
Don't tell me how to stand.
Or how the world is empty when
You're absent someone's hand.
Don't say I'm clear to disappear
And pray things plot my course
The way my mind has drafted it,
When I was yet in sorts.

Living keeps taking the breath out of me.
I hold hands with my accomplishments
And smile at the breeze that cuts my hair,
Lingering over the idea of tomorrow.

**

It felt empty. And I wondered why we do this
When our hearts and heads are past these places
But we keep physically in now.
I wasn't searching, wasn't striving,
Wasn't fighting to win
The battle I've accepted I've lost.

Vain repetition,
With the illusion of contempt
And a voice
That suddenly remembered
Maybe.

**

"What are you doing?"

A question for the ages. A novellic framework for the life I trudge through. What are you doing?

I couldn't tell you, my head buried in books, my heart swaddled in t-shirts, my body limp in bed.

Looking, I guess. I suppose that's a thought; looking for something without this. It's occurred to me how narrow the scope my existence has come to take up. Perhaps that's the circle I've created in time that's led me to fear there's nothing but familiarity from here, and a sort of discontent turning of events.

**

I remember better than you. You have to remember it's because I memorized it all. I had so much childish hope, so much doe-eyed optimism that I had to remember. And memories fade hard.

Forgive me if I sound like I still care. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but when it's there I find I lack.

A defense mechanism, you said. A correct choice of words, for hearts break too hard and too fast. We've allotted our course; let's continue the march and maybe find our own way to right.

This was hard to write with Take On Me stuck in my head.

I dreamed I wrote a song in my sleep last night.

My best friend and I signed up last minute for an open mic/battle of the bands type thing, and showed up unprepared. We had to perform three songs.

I started hitting some beat on a folded up card table and just sang anything and everything. It became a wonder of a song, stripped down to my vocals and the beat I created, a phantom piano somehow chiming in. It was completely impromptu and it went on for at least six minutes. And it was, in that moment, as grandeous in beautiful simplicity as Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody is in complexity.

And when it ended the crowd was amazed, one band much closer to fame than us even remarking "Can we try that song?"


And I woke up feeling unaccomplished and lacking.

I've forgotten creativity.

My sophomore year of high school I took a hiatus from life and stewed in the books I was assigned to read for English and the pieces we wrote and the character complexities for the book I've still yet to write. I observed the world and scripted it, in notes to myself or musings. I swam with creative fish. I forsook participating in reality.

I've started doing the opposite. I'm so absorbed in the moment, keeping a keen ear on conversation, reworking my humor to be the quick spit-fire it used to be (it's more fitting for improv), realizing that my life is founded on the choices I make in these days...I'm trying to do it right.

And I've forgotten creativity.

I felt so unaccomplished and lacking because I used to do things like that; not compose brilliant songs that would rake in all the Grammys, but I used to write lyrics and simple tunes in my head. I used to create with my mind constantly. And don't get me wrong, I still do that. I've come up with three improv characters this weekend alone, but all the tried and true methods I used to employ I've somehow discarded with the trash.

And I'm not complete anymore.


That's one thing I've been learning a lot of lately; completion. I need theatre in my life, I need elaborate creativity that an audience or reader only barely scratches the surface of. I need words, words, words. I need to be happy. I need to be with someone who knows he wants to be with me. I need to clean my room. I'm discovering all of these things I never thought would matter that are now suddenly more important than remembering which song they're playing on the radio.

I was concerned that I've been out of commission these past two months; that since November I've written two notebooks full and at least forty blog posts on creative/personal things my mind sees fit to craft. I was concerned I haven't been channeling that spirit at a time where I should have felt so very much.

And maybe that's a sign these roads were never right to begin with. Maybe that's a sign what crept up on the path wouldn't complete me. Maybe we have to live mistakes to learn.


**

(I wrote this Friday):

Remember when we thought we knew
And it would slip in place like fitted shoes
Worn with years of walking, moulded to our arch?
We fantasized and dreamt and planned
For years and things without our hands
As though we had exception to make of ourselves.

And then the courses shifted short;
We stood aghast with ill report
That life could so destroyed become.
Foolish acts of foolish minds,
Disbelief falls fast in kind
That mortal men can plot a fate
Assured from the starting gate
And all would be a bliss, a bless,
A simple unchallenging test
For happiness to come.
That God would take the easy road
And let us carry less a load
To ease the journey home.

There's beauty in intricacy,
Art in surprise.
We'd give it up if it meant smoother skies?
Or strive to be complacent, set
In the plan that God sent
And learn in whatsoever state I am,
Therewith to be content.

**


I like how clouds have shadows. And how like Peter Pan that can't manage to catch them. No amount of sewing could bring a cloud near enough it's shadow. So they drift gracefully in a cerulean sky, smiling at me and my camera with the full memory, pulling apart angel hair, casting dark spots on the patchwork.

So I live in a meadow; a stationary existence, watching time pass with the faint current of the sky, amazed and afraid at the limitless expanse above me, beyond this air ships and the seal that keeps them earthbound. And the sun keeps shinning, and I keep acknowledging it's there, and the clouds cover me moment after quiet moment, and the light dims but persists. The light always persists.

And even clouds have dark sides. Even clouds have shadows. Even clouds can block the sun.

So good can't always be good. Every cloud has a shadow, whether it casts over me or not. And there's nothing that can stop the way they wander.

Hollow Hearts

A hollowed heart
And safety pins
And three days off the grid;
Nothing stays,
No act retains
A truth beneath my skin.

There's something, then,
In tears they say,
That stream from conscious eyes:
A window to the soul
That leaks what words would lie.

**

I haven't blogged for a bit. I don't really count the one paragraph blogs of the past month typed on a phone that's finicky and frustrating and won't let me do that thing I do called start new paragraphs.

I mean come on. It's called voice, people.

There's been a lot on my plate, most off of it good. I can't really think of anything not good other than my interpretation of events.

They say reality is what we percieve. I feel I wrote a post on this back a while ago, if not I typed one and it was stupid so I didn't post it. I read a book once a few years back which, if my lazy "I don't want to get up and grab it and verify the title" self can recall, it's called "My Ridiculous Romantic Obsessions."

I bought it at a Deseret Book.

I liked it because it was one of those Mormon books that isn't full of "And it reminded me of Nephi when he broke his bow..." or "Jim's dad was the Bishop of our fine upstanding ward and his mom taught the best Relief Society lessons and always put a tablecloth and a bowl of jello out for whomever wished to partake..."

Those really nausiate me.

Which, side note, is one reason I wanted to be an author. I wanted to write books that stuck to church standards without dripping each paragraph with the sappy Mormon cliches. As a very devoted member of the LDS faith, this books sicken me and I find myself having to force them down my palate like a steaming plate of mushrooms. If I dislike them so much, people outside the faith must detest them. So, logically, what's the point in lacing a book with fluffy Mormon cliches when it's not going to entice anyone to follow up on what it is the Mormons believe? What's the point if it's just going to irritate and annoy?

It's called subtext, people.

This book, going back to the topic, was along the lines of what I wish to write. It clearly was written by and for pure virtuous religious eyes, but it wouldn't be blatantly obvious to someone not used to looking through that lens. The girl had been in a bad relationship and he'd done a lot to tear her down as a person, and though she didn't capitalize on it she had lingering low selfesteem issues.

Then she meets this really rad guy and doesn't think he's interested romantically because who would be? And she inadvertantly breaks up with him when he asks if she wants them to be friends. She says yes, thinking that, hey, at least he likes me enough to be friends this is great, when what he meant was 'You don't want to see me so let's at least be friends?'

As a reader this is a moment where you snap the book shut or shake your head incredulously at your personification of her and say "Moron. You're a freaking moron."

Last week I was a freaking moron.


Let me say it truly is hard to see when you're not looking at it from the outside. It's the reality we've constructed for ourselves; she was convinced he'd at minimum want to be friends, so had no idea she was saying no to more because she couldn't see him as wanting more. I did the same thing. I was convinced bridges were burning, or were soon to be set ablaze, and I started treating the wounds before they existed hoping to get a jump-start on the pain.


Love is draining. And I don't even mean the "I love you" love. I mean the whole process of getting to that point. I can't imagine a lifetime of relationships that just don't work; I can't fathom how empty hearts keep giving. What's in the hollowed hearts that's worth the risk? What's there to giving and giving and always coming up short? And when a moment comes when someone actually cares....

What is there to give?

"No, this is how it works: you peer inside yourself, you take the things you like and try to love the things you took. And then you take that love you made and stick it into someone else's heart pumping someone else's blood...You hope it don't get harmed, but even if it does you'll just do it all again." -Regina Spektor; On the Radio

An End

I stifled my breath for you,
For a moment,
Until the wind gushed by
And my lungs were opened
Like the understanding held within my eyes.
These silhouetted pictures,
Crafted from the sheepskin
With driftwood frames
Falter in their masking
The walls.

I see now and breathe
And lay in wait
For the stuffy air to
Dissipate. Open the window.
Shut the damn door.
Leave me to lie
And to live.
This dust isn't keeping me;
You're not boxing me in.
I'm gone whether you care
Or notice.

To be cordial would be nice.
To recompense would be better.
But you prefer neither,
So I suppose I'm the same.
I'll see you the other side of never.

Don't Ya Dare Fell

It's a good thing I was the most proficient at treading water in the community pool;
it's smart to develop skill in something you think you'll never use.

***

I know what you mean,
At least I keep saying I do.
It hurts more to misinterpret.
I've allowed us to continue
Because it feel so good with you,
But I forget how much it hurts
When you're gone.

I told myself no,
I started bolting the locks
And shutting down shop
And hunkering in for the storm.

Stop doing this to me.
Stop taking 90 and leaving 10,
I go to meet you and you're gone
Again.

***

She remembered it like a painting,
Art crafted out of time
And laced upon a canvas
Sprouting truth and bliss
And unfathomable reason to continue.

***

You keep me from sleeping.
I pushed my chair back from the desk.
It's done. I said it. It's out there.

***

Have enough faith to fall.
I never climbed a rock wall,
I didn't go the extra mile
On that hike in Zions,
I kept both ice skates on the ice.

I've constantly been plagued
By the idea of injury
Induced from falling from some height.
That's how bones are broken,
That's how structure is shattered,
Destruction descends from high up.
I stayed planted to the earth,
Arms and legs in at all times,
Trying to enjoy the ride
That took me nowhere.

I've lived a linear life.
I've gone the mundane route;
I haven't climbed,
Haven't felled,
Haven't experienced the suspense
Of pain
Or the revival of vitals and life.

Life.

I haven't lived life.

But that's more than can be said for you.
As fond you are of painting
These pictures and how-to's
For my inexperienced naive mind,
As thrilled you are at zig-zagging
Through the maze,
You refuse to climb
More often than I do.
Or even worse,
You climb, but not far enough.

I'm tired of all the nothing
The wind blows in my face,
Tired of the specks of frayed leaves
Scattering about my eyes
At the close of their journey from
Up above.
I'm tired of the remnants of
An altitude I refuse to know.

So I started to climb.

I'm ready to fall.
I'm ready to let go and fall.
I've stumbled for this, but
Kept carrying on
Because the bruises and
Scars are better than the unknown;
Better than knowing I could have had
But refrained.
Of knowing it was coming
But I abstained.

Have enough faith to fall.
Have the strength to look at me
And see beyond
What you can't decide;
Stop making mountains
Out of mole-holes
And take your own advice.
Stop telling me I'll scare you off,
I already have.
You're terrified.
Forget it.
Forsake it.

Have enough faith to fall.

I'm trying to catch you
-I'm waiting to catch you-
The way I expected you to catch me.

rats on a conveyor belt

Einstein's definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

A treadmill.
That's what we are.
Rats on a conveyor belt.
Running from the operant conditioned threat
Dangling metaphorically overhead,
Looming and pressing
When I sometimes wish you'd just forget
And take a moment to breath.
Realize this constant running
Isn't helping,
Isn't healing,
Isn't saving
Hearts from being broken
And attacking.

***

What's the first memory that sneaks up on you
When lay in bed in the dark?
Do you shut down your mind to avoid
Dealing in dreams
And awake the same way you are?
Are you thoughtful and pensive,
Recalling a time when your smile
Met against mine?
Or are memories plagues
Locked tightly away
Where they can't cause any harm.

***

Tomorrow's vacant like the jar
She left
On the counter Wednesday night.
I have reason to fill it,
Space needing spun,
But I seldom perfect the art.

***

There's tantamount of words to say
To illustrate my mind today.
And thus it seems,
My cognition schemes
To put a Silverstein lens
Into play.

For vagueness is a folly girl
Who dances as she may,
Skirting round
The construction of sound,
Keeping words at bay.

So rhyming seems the source
To seek. The usher
To lend his hand
And guide within
The patrons dim
In hopes they understand.

***

Words words words
My heart dries up;
This failure rifts my skin.
Fault fault fault
I drink it up
And let remorse flow in.
Tomorrow's nigh to coming fast
And here we lie in bed,
Staring at the cobwebs long
Ago of spiders fled.

It's when you look back and see yourself as a different person that you know you've moved on. 

I never really had one of those moments. I had the experience of reading a journal or school writing assignment from early adolescent days and smiling at the immaturity and stupidity of that little girl. But I've also had the experience of reading something less than a year out of date and cringing at my youthful way of seeing the world.

And then I had this, reading words penned less than three months ago, and realized it's nothing to do with the wrongness with which I viewed the world in that space, but rather the difference with which I see it in this moment compared to then.

It's the disconnect, the Brechtian breech of the fourth wall. Those memories, writings, stories sound so distant and strange because I'm not the girl that wrote them anymore. I stopped reading the book for a few months and tried to pick it up where I left off, without reviewing context. I paused the movie for a day and came back to watch the end.

Alienation. 

That's the term. 

I felt that way when I wrote it. I believed those ideals when I scribed them. I see them as ridiculous or odd now because I don't look at life in those eyes anymore. Times have changed, my situation has changed, and my eyes have had to adjust.

Does this make sense? I feel I'm losing factuality in my vagueness.

I don't know if this is a thing, and frankly I'm too lazy to look into it, but in my creative writing class in high school, the teacher dedicated the month of April to poetry writing. Allegedly it's National Poetry Writing Month, or something. (That's the part I'm too lazy to look up. Go forth and discover.)

November is National Novel Writing Month, but this past November I resolved to merely write something every day, as my novel was not fresh enough in my mind to flesh out. So I did. I carried a notebook with me and wrote something every day, a practice I have for the most part carried on through these intervening months. With regards to April, I had an idea.

I've been writing a lot of poetry lately. So I'm not going to do that for April.

I'm going to write monologues.

A few months back I was searching for a monologue and I stopped by my blog, with monologues on the mind, and realized a lot of my musings are structured as theatrical pieces, which only makes sense when you consider what I'm wrapped up in constantly. I've written and performed a few monologues for school that have turned out quite well, and each time I've thought "Write more of these."

So I'm going to.

I don't promise to post them, I find I get more slacker-ish if I give myself strict requirements like getting on the computer to type a thing every day. But, undoubtedly, like I do with most everything else, when I write something I'm very much pleased with, I will most likely post it here.

So...yeah. I just felt like writing a blog post that was actually a blog post and not some sentimental/poetic/prosetic piece. 

a jumble of scattered moments.

I considered myself diminutive.
I withheld my hand the way the sun skirted behind clouds.

I...



I count days like sheep, watch how many pass before I start to nod off, before the consciousness I maintain by the struggle of my cognitive mind sinks beyond measurable ability and I succumb. I am lost, drifting, sleeping with the weeks that pass by, lending me no cause to consciousness, no momentum for movement, while the world within and without me spins with minute details I must attend to: words to right and remember, colors to craft and create, and I am sleeping.

Eternally sleeping.

Because nothing's come yet to keep me awake.




I wanted to say something.
To set myself down and spill it
Like the cat did the milk.
My trouble is this,
My trouble is specific:

Truth.

Truth is my flaw.

Because what wants to flow,
What yearns to be knocked
From urns 'round my feet
Are the facts, reality, truth.

I want to be honest.

With a public forum,
I find I can't;
As ironic as this seems
When one considers the fact
I created this page
For factual musings in
Fictitious settings.

But there's the rub:
I cannot craft fiction for this.
I cannot say it with metaphor.

I cannot spell the truth
With lies.

I cannot tell you without facing
Your eyes.

Chasing Rubies

It's kicking in, this idea that I'll make it.
I'm dropping all the weights and chains
That kept me stationed back with "maybe"
And doing as I feel.
I'm making motions, striking chords,
Taking strides towards
Whatever is coming at me.

I'm plowing into darkness,
A fog of secrecy wrapping about my lungs,
But through the process
I am content.
Ready, aware, content
That regardless where I end,
I end there for a purpose;
For a reason undisputed by God.

It is comfort, this strength,
This remarkable means of letting go.
It is security to choose,
To strike a match of agency
And let the fire loose.

I am ready here, and waiting.
Good things are coming soon.

Heart To Ground

I can't figure out what to say.
I can't even decide how to say it,
But this jumble in my head
And in my veins
Is testament enough that words...
Words need to be spoken.

I'm too weak to do it.

I don't want to dig holes.
I don't want to find myself
Miles from where I want to be,
Miles from the surface,
Underground
Where the worms live in motion
And the soil's damp and cold.
Where they could bury me
And leave me none the wiser
But all the more better off.

It's a crime against my sanity
To love as much
As often
As I do.
I'd seldom encounter issues
If I didn't strap my heart to my sleeve
And tread where others go.

My heart sheds affection
Fragmentally
When I am bumped
In a metaphorical sense.
My heart, exposed to the
Toxicity of air and interaction
By its presence on my sleeve
Is weakened by its openness
To the relatable world.
And like a soft rock
Continuously bumped against one sharper,
It flakes away,
Bits of my heart scattering to
Whomever was responsible,
Or whomever is standing still.

I call it curse
Because I can't escape,
And with the likes of you it's worse.
My heart doesn't fit in my own chest,
It pines of the day I find it a place
To burrow itself for keeps,
To build walls of soft tissue
And lava lamps of blood;
To cocoon itself under clavicles
And beat for years to come.

I am not other girls.
Ignore the teenage meaning
Of other girls breaking hearts
And acting floozies.
I'm not other girls
Because you don't have to win my heart.
You already have most of it
From bumping past as often
As you have.
You don't have to win my heart.
Just let me know you want it.
Give me a sign you'll take it,
Keep it,
And lend me yours in exchange.