When I sit in the library

I know it's dark outside because half of what I see is tables and chairs and florescent lights and cold drafts outside the window. I glanced down, and in those ten seconds the street lights clicked on.

Evening is a fading.  Is there a moment when it's afternoon and the next is evening?  When does evening turn to night?

If I have learned one thing this quarter, it's that definite answers are dangerous. Straight lines are rare. We're all a little blurred.

Five minutes ago, I would have walked home through the alley without a second thought. Now, though, I'll take the long way home, after three hours of stolen sight tick past.

Moats and Boats and Waterfalls

I don't think "my ears feel weird" is a valid medical complaint.  Not one that will allow me to skip out on my midterm tomorrow at least.

Patience.  We're begging.

Jill and I have been playing on the swings across the street.  I swear, there's no better feeling - the closest we'll come to flying.  Racing through the cold air, lungs stinging with each breath, hands going numb wrapped around chains, legs tiring from pumping.  Nothing beats it.

My three skills: cookie baking, sentence diagramming, and locating books in libraries super fast.  My future looks incredibly promising.

Perspective on life has gotten really small; I'm trying to blow it back out instead of sitting here stewing in frustrations and judgments.

I am the Lord,
Your Holy One,
Israel's Creator,
Your King.
Isaiah 43:15

When sleep is not a cure all, water.  And more water.  And perhaps a little tea.

perfect imperfections

I'm still waiting to find your flaws, to revel in your imperfections and soak up your humanity.  I want moments that make you ugly so that we can be the same.  Let me see those beautiful flaws so I am not the only one imperfect. 

Show me.

I promise I'll love you more for it.

I should be sleeping

At some point, I'm sure, the twenty-ninth of any month won't make me sigh and think about time.  At some point, knowing me, we've years of sighing left.

Sometimes I don't know what to do besides keep on breathing, breath after breath, because that's all I know how to do.  But even when I think too hard about that, it becomes a struggle of the highest degree.

I don't know how to live this life.  I feel like I'm wasting every second.

I want to find some beautiful place to get lost, to run away merely for the sake of seeing if anyone would follow me.  Is it destructive to want to feel like someone needs you?

Sometimes I pretend that you're sitting next to me to see how it affects how I live my life.

I'm waiting for this day:

Occasionally, I rhyme:

Never have I known a distance so acutely,
Never before realized the definition of alone.
Plugged in, staring down at backlit screens,
Gifting silence to a “hi” when you come home.
Empty doesn’t always correspond with emptiness
Because this room is empty, though it’s full.
I can’t explain in sense what makes my heart catch,
Some fear for an eternity built of this lull.
Because, really, what is hell but lifelong silence
When others are close enough to share a word?
But, instead of utilizing vocal chords,
We’ll all stare down at processed little worlds.

Nested Sets of Hypotheticals

It's not enough to exchange nice words, encouraging sentiments, and I love yous without living real life together.  But can we live real life together when this country is stretching itself between us?

It's not enough to flee from problems, to pack up a bag and sprint, whether up hill or down, leaving a mug of tea steaming on the table, forgotten.  But how do you stay when the urge to run threatens you with its force?

It's not enough to pretend to live, to surround yourself with people and music, noise and books, laughter and hugs, when you don't really know anyone or are known by anyone.  But how do you settle and deepen and cut things out, narrowing your view, when there is so much you want to see, hear, and taste?

I know it's not enough and that's why I panic.

It's a funny thing, panic.  It's effects are long-lasting, that shaky uncertainty of forgetting everything, failing everyone, certain helplessness to do anything.  As you try (and beg) to talk yourself down off that ledge of your heart beating so fast surely you're going to die, of too much breath (too much life) that you're killing yourself, nothing makes it ok except the passage of time, of watching the minutes tick past and knowing that this too will pass.  Funny when the cause and the cure are the same.

Maybe that's why I run, because being somewhere new gives the illusion of time going faster, going slower, not existing.  It's a chance to step outside my existence of expectations and supposed to bes and actually be; to breathe, not too little and not too much, but enough to keep the seconds, pulse-like, ticking.

Postcards

Because everybody should be proud of what they’re good at but sometimes that’s a challenge which is what Mom calls things that are hard to do and you might have to hear someone else say they’re proud of you before you can be proud of yourself even if it’s just a stranger who sent you a postcard by mistake.