vanity

in

Attack of the Clones

(after Linda Pastan's "Angels" )

I am tired of fake girls,

Cloned and bleached,

foundation caked.

Inch-thick eye liner, hiding the children they still are,

masking the innocence they pretend to have lost.

I am tired of exaggerated emotions,

I love you’s and other sorts.

Chain reaction tears and

dependability for eating,  breathing,  speaking;

rights stolen by the communist A-list.

Souls only visible  orange,  damaged-skin deep.

Remember kindergarten, I want to tell them,

wearing first day dresses

and hair in carefree tangles,

Laughter and pure and original.

What does conformity mean?

It smells like Abercrombie & Fitch

and takes a real girl and makes her forget.

Landslide

in

i find myself writing centos in my head daily, stringing together lyrics from various songs that seemed to correspond with one another. i'm essentially using other people's words, i suppose. it's simple, but i'll try not to make a habit out of it. but take my word, i will always cite a cento when it is in fact, a cento. lately i've done some digging, and here's one i actually wrote down from last year.

Landslide (a cento)

Wake up kids; we’ve got the dreamer’s disease

There were so many fewer questions

When stars were still just the holes to heaven

Our dreams, they are made out of real things

You are young men, you must be living

Love is the answer,

at least to most of the questions in my heart.

You only get what you give

And I don’t mind anymore.

All the stars and boulevards ain’t close enough for you

Are you happy now?

I’m not lost, just undiscovered

Someday you will find me caught beneath the landslide

You don’t know me,

you don’t wear my chains.

just some static

in

(word vomit)

can i hear the sounds you're saying laugh the words that you are speaking dream deeply with the waves crashing through the day while horses are cliche prancing like they always have while i sit with my hands tied the only method of escape is through that of the mind that is sharp as a blade that is right beyond reach can i free you like you free me break these bonds that carefully see why we are the way we are speaking words we do not know until the air is thick with lies and we cannot see a thing bless the undersea and the breathing and all that's in between when we stop is when we win because then there is no drive so we

keep

on

pushing

giving every day a try and then we keep on failing cause winning is a lie and we fall asleep to windowsills and watching people cry and i don't know why i'm rhyming cause it doesn't seem to fly but these words are in my head so i say them to clarify that there will never be clarity between you and i.

light

in

regarding the spontaneous day of sunshine we experienced today, i'm realizing that i should probably address a necessity for sunlight. either i've been extremely deficient of vitamin D, or it's really been that gray and ugly for several months, but i couldn't help but feel euphoric sitting under a sunlight i hadn't recognized as march. it's that first experience of spring, when you feel warmth on your arms generating from a source that is not from within your own sleeves, it feels like it's been years since august, since you said the word summer and it held credibility. when it held weight, heat, truth. when i could walk and breathe at the same time, inhaling air that wasn't taught and frozen and dead, but infused with life and humidity. i could easily compare today's sensations with those that are experienced upon receiving an unexpected letter from a far-away friend. oh hey, sun. how you been?

i'm considering the conditions of something known as seasonal affective disorder. thank you, AP Psych. lack of sun exposure leads to symptoms similar to that of mild depression, feeling gloomy, for lack of a better word. when i get to thinking about sunnier climates, i question why i don't live in places like Florida or southern California. why don't we all live closer to the equator? is it just me, or aren't we all a little more grumpy when we're cold? waking up before daylight has often had an extremely dampening effect upon the rest of my day, for years. the cold in winter sure doesn't help, but waking up to sun, is like a promise that the day might actually feel like sun. like warmth. comfort. sun always has this analogy with happiness, but i'm actually believing it to be a legitimate relationship: sun evokes happiness.

sometimes, we feel aimless, and we are incapable of explaining why. i'd like to blame something once in a while, just to know there's a reason for it, and after today, winter sounds like a pretty suitable scapegoat for my persistent and contextually irrelevant gray demeanor over the past few weeks.

"keep me where the light is." –gravity by john mayer.

we keep saying someday.

in

hello, blog. i'd like to introduce my thoughts: they say time flies when you're having fun. time isn't flying, so i guess this period of my life isn't fun. the truth? i want to be miles from nineteen, to be in a place that i cannot currently forecast, and the anticipation's got a knife at my back.

nineteen is an inbetween of childhood and adulthood.

it's the only chance to grow up and learn the world while still holding the hand of your five-year-old tendencies. it's where i stand, stumped at a yearning for regression, yet understanding simultaneously that i'm one two three seconds older with the inevitable continuity of ticking time time time.

acting my age would be much easier if age weren't as elusive as the second hand.

it's a fragile tug of war between head and heart. my mind says grow up. move on, live, learn. my heart says remember. come back, laugh, love. i struggle between what is necessary and what i want: what i should do and what i feel like doing, as if there is no middle ground.

and maybe that's all i'm searching for. a middle ground. this balance between past and future, the one time i feel somewhat sure about who i was and who i want to be, yet still not completely able to define who i am. this? this is an attempt to address the middle-ground complex, to record my progress from inexperience to understanding through observations and irrational emotional outbursts. i want to actually understand the world i live in and not feel three feet tall when i have an opinion. i want to stop tripping over the trivial and the temporal and starting walking with the eternal, to meet some life long goals and maybe help them out a bit without losing the framework my childhood created. kudos to anyone who attempts to follow. i'm hoping i can make the distance.

disclaimer: i'm essentially the epitome of naiveté and a die-hard child at heart.

and by the way, i hate clichés, too. pardon my frequent usage, i'm working on it.

let's have some fun.