Velvet was plastic,
Velvet is plastic
Velvet is melting
into
my mouth
where things are
tasteless
always tasteless,
courteous to things
unreal
don't you want to know me?
don't you want to
before all the velvet
is gone?

Light That Haunts Shadows

I think it was
gallons of harmonics, shifting the air,
or seeing deep anxiety, superficial
aching stains of neon perfection,
(in my attempt to comprehend the
consequence, the product of crafted
matter between your eyes) that furthered

this snaking weightlessness


the apricot ivy of fingers, toes tapping,
bridging the plasma of feelings desensitized
by the slaving man's owner, Realism--
joyful concept treasures, disintegrating
in acid rain, wonders that die before
the first fall of winter, the little things
in you that button up tight when the right
pair of eyes trickle with light
that haunts shadows,

all that's deemed strange, useless,

in a boy's mechanical

Universe.

August in a Snow

Finding August in a snow
(flake that pinches tightened cheeks)
plucks an honest, silent woe
that dyes the blue-black-haired in bleach.

Strung amidst the atomic hush,
(words that hide in hunted trees)
one cannot shake the simple must
while moon peels the orange eve.

Those Pisces lips deal heavy hands,
in bandaged, sallow eyes of sleep,
'til sun finds Pisces an empty man,
and little wonders left to keep.

somewhere

"Sink my bones
in the shallowest moat,"
I heard Ella say,
dressed to the nines--
with her shoes untied,
flowers for eyes, and
glass palms full of sand
slipping through two hands.

We owned no castles
to paint on easels
but if we did, I'd know
it was her magic lie,
with walls so high
they brushed heaven's tide

where they swept up a smile
lost somewhere
in the desert.

The "Narcissistic" Poet

Last Friday I encountered a few choice words from my Creative Writing teacher that I found interesting. He was looking over my poetry, making editing comments about it, asking me what certain things meant or why I put them there. He then told me that, "you can't be imcomprehensible. You need to be accessible."

But what does that really mean?


Let's take a moment to break this down.


As a poet, it is your duty to express yourself, whether yourself be concise, chaotic, peaceful, sick, loving, angry, alive, or dead. Whatever it is that you are in that moment--you must express that.

And poet's are not there to express what they think is accessible. Quite the opposite, actually. Poetry, art--is narcissism. It's replicating something of yourself that others can love, for others to love. It is duplicating yourself for the purpose of enjoyment, for the purpose of awe. Understanding is really only a by-product of the general enjoyment of poetry. Let me explain.

There are many things you consider when writing a poem. For me, meaning hardly comes first-- a feeling comes first. I hardly ever have an ending in mind when I start writing. And why? Because I enjoy poetry, mostly, for how it looks, how it sounds.

The by-product is understanding.

If it sounds like something beautiful, I feel like it is beautiful. If the array of words looks physically beautiful, I feel like it is beautiful. If there is a meaning in it, it is beautiful. But who knows what was going through the poet's head at the time? By the given poem, no one excet the poet.

To say that you must alter your art for the general public--for accessibility--is not only stifling expression, but underestimating the audience. It is saying, "If I don't understand this, no one will." It is blatantly limiting the beauty of poetry.
And all of that feels unnecessary. There is not one meaning in poetry--there's a thousand meanings. There's probably more than a million.

But "it is not necessary to understand--only necessary to love".

I Capture the Castle

I saw the title movie recently and really liked it, although it ended so bittersweetly. Unfortunately, that's life. Altogether, I felt the main character Cassandra was alot like me.. even though I would've picked Henry Cavill/Stephen ANYFRIGGINGDAY over the other guy... but whatevs. lol. The title is so dreeeeamy that I can't get over it! I'll have to read the book, too. :)

All-State's coming up in like, a week.. oh geez, maybe less. It's scary because I always think I have it together, but I really don't. I have so much to practice. :( Sigh. I really hope I do better than I have in previous years. I always try to be proud of myself, and I am most of the time--but I'm a perfectionist. It's a great and terrible thing to be.



But this week in general has been pretty good. Thanksgiving was good, despite the chaos of having mom cook EVERYTHING for the first time in a long time, with Grandma still recovering from her broken hip and that kind of changing everything. But we got around it, and I don't wanna sound like it's her fault, 'cause it's not.

This past month or so in general has been bad, really bad. Just a lot of things happening all at once. My dad had gallbladder surgery after a horrible attack, and that made things better for a while, but recently he had another horrible attack and had to get his appendix out. The ER is never helpful either, as my mom didn't get home 'til 2AM on a school night after hours and hours of waiting. Thankfully he's much better now, but all of this merely happened while other horrible events occurred.. my Uncle that I never met, dying alone and under strange circumstances, and my grandma passing away after struggling for months on end. And not to mention my paternal grandmother's hip and memory issue. It's going pretty fast. I'm scared wondering if she'll remember me much longer.




It's a strange thing watching all your heroes die with time. And I don't just mean family; I mean famous people that somehow become part of who you are---people that seem like they could never die, like Paul McCartney, or Eddie Vedder, Neil Young, or Bob Dylan. And yet, they're people and they are willed to die. We think they're not human. We hope they're not human.

I can't imagine what it was like for my parents to watch their parent(s) pass away. For me, it was someone I barely knew, but to them--it was what they are to me. I can't fathom that day, what it would be like. I don't want to know.


As I was reading Letters to a Young Poet today, it struck me really deeply, and soundly, how much those words were alive. Commonly, we read words like dead things, things that, once passed over, never revive. And when we analyze literature, it's all wrong. We're taught to speed read, to, as quickly as possible, sum up an idea, get the gist, get it over with, and feel smarter. And that's all wrong. Take minutes to read a page, to read a paragraph, a sentence, two words. Because those words are someone else, and now are in you, and you must respect them as if they were rich possessions generously offere to you from another dimension, another time.

Too frequently we read in the dark, with cluttered noise all around. It wasn't 'til today, reading in the utmost silence and daylight, that I realized it.

Blue Roses

Yesterday we read The Glass Menagerie in class. As we were reading the character descriptions, I was really struck by Laura Wingfield--the daughter, and one of the main characters. We were so similar, in fact, that I felt entitled to play her. I raised my hand hesitantly, but another girl who's in drama class took the part at the same moment. Most of the drama kids get picked automatically, because they usually make whatever they're reading very good. Although the other girl did a good job, I felt I could've done better. I left class a little down-hearted. But today she wasn't there. The teacher assigned me the part. It felt a lot more right to me. One of my friends, who played the mother character, said I was perfect for the role, and another of my friends said I did really well with the part.

But now, I just have to wonder if that's a good or bad thing.

I've forgotten to say that really, a good amount of things has happened in these past few weeks! I went to a concert--and not just ANY concert--a (Brandon Heath and) JARS OF CLAY CONCERT. Yeah, SO PRETTY MUCH AMAZING. I seriously am in love with Stephen Mason. He's hysterical. Dan Haseltine is an amazing guy. And really, so is Charlie Lowell, and Matt Odmark, and that entire band. Everytime I listen to them, I think of so many wonderful and sad and graceful times in my life. I think I was one of the only younger kids there who had heard all of there stuff way back from 1995--that's right kids, I've listened to them since I was 2. And they really made my childhood happy. Them, and DC Talk, and all those guys. Needless to say, they started with "Liquid", I freaked out, I screamed all the lyrics to all their old (and newer) stuff.. it was amazing. I came to the concert hoping truly, madly, deeply that they'd play things from their first album (because it's probably my favorite of theirs)--and just my luck--they DID, because that day (Nov. 6th) was the anniversary of their first album. And they sold a frigging collector's vinyl of it, and I HAVE IT RIGHT HERE. AND OMGOSH. Sorry, still a little excited just thinking about it. Anywho, they played "Love Song for a Savior", "Worlds Apart", "Faith Like A Child".. basically, amazing stuff. I couldn't have been happier with the performance, really. And the little chit chat between songs as Stephen and Dan cracked jokes about their bad 90's haircuts, and how only hipsters would have the right equipment to listen to their old material because it was a vinyl. And how no one knew about their first record (EXCEPTMEAHSFSH). And how, if you're a hipster, you need a moustache. And "all you people sitting in your seats are dead". Because IT'STRUE. (this person, right here, stood up proudly 97% of the time, WOOT!)

Anyways, you get the gist. It was amazing. I got a t-shirt too, and it doesn't really fit, but it doesn't matter, because it commemorates the day that my mom and I went to see one of my favorite bands in the whole world. And they're just as perfect and on key and crazy live. I love them. Seriously.


All in all though, today was pretty good. A lot of homework, little sleep, and senior pictures that just didn't turn out the way I wanted at all, got me really depressed, and I have to admit, I cried a bit. But when I checked my ACT scores, hoping to God that if it was anything, it couldn't be worse--I got a 29!!! I'm incredibly happy. That means money, which means a future, basically. I doubt I could've done much better, if better at all! I raised my score 3 points in total--my math score to a 26, my reading to a 33, and my science (somehow) to a 24. My English had always been in the mid-30's, so I was grateful that it was a 34, but honestly wasn't surprised (not to sound braggy, lol). All in all, I have many things to thank God for. I forget that he probably misses me, too, sometimes.