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.

Dear You

I realize you are probably very far away right now.

And I realize that you are probably very different from me, too.

You probably are generally content or discontent with your life, unlike me. You probably don't lie awake at night thinking about whether you're real or not. Because if you do, well, that could be a problem.

You probably don't want to be a magazine girl one moment, and very much yourself the other. You probably don't think about God outside that vague sense of happiness. You've probably shoved him in a logical box, while he's slowly evaporating.

You probably don't paint your nails "Raven Red" when you worry, or stay up 'til 2 on a school night just because you know time doesn't exist. You probably don't have pages and pages of lists of things you really need but you'll never get.

You probably aren't terribly complex, although I wish you were. You probably would scare me at first. Why, you ask? Why, because you'd be the first one. Your eyes in mine. It's a sign of the times.

It means, in a way, I'd be ready to die.

I'd be willing to give you all my secrets.

It means I'd be very much alone.

And I realize that it's narcissistic of me to hope you understand me, when I am sometimes, strangely, less interested in you. Do you think it's wrong to use someone else to find yourself? I do. I very much do. But we do it everyday, through that guitar, that bent page. And that crazy social network.

But what I mean to say is this: Maybe your eyes are plain, and not sparkling green, blue, orange pools of exotic exhibition. Maybe your hair isn't handsome or fine, but a little knotted, and lazily coarse. Perhaps your hands aren't refined and elegant. Maybe they're broad, but perfect for handywork. Your smile might be quirkier than I could ever imagine. Your voice might not be very low, but your laugh might be just right. I just have to write this to remind myself that not everything I want is human, but I need something that is.

And I know this is getting long, so I'll try to write more often with less junk. You're probably one of those people that likes words to "get on with it", and I understand.

I was like that once.

Today is Tomorrow

So I need to really start getting myself in gear for college crap. There's a scholarship essay due next Monday that I just started on today, but I really need it done by tomorrow, at least by Wednesday. I hate the feeling of a deadline like this. College, and everything. My parents don't want me to go anywhere but John Brown, and I know they have a really good inkling of what's best for me, But something tells me I won't be the happiest there. I feel weird just applying to the college they want me at, but I'm not applying to Wheaton while the app is right beside me. I don't get it. It's not even laziness.. I guess it's just some kind of fear.

Either way, I pray it works out for the best.. and not just the best for me--the best for all of us. I know God has the right plan for me--he always has, and I've never doubted that. But it gets scary along the way, when today starts becoming tomorrow, and sooner or later, everything's different.


And I was thinking today. You know what? I don't care that I'm an idealist. Because what is real, dies. Only the ideal lives forever. And I don't plan on dying for death.




Power of One
Darling, dare
do not look down
because there is nothing
so beautiful as the up
carved in toothy cherub smiles
secreted in feathered
upward eyes. The
power of one living will not die, because
this is the Magician's favorite
apparition:
Boots struggling soulless towards the night,
Saying, "Boots were not made
for walking that light."

Infinite

I feel like a complete and total hypocrite right now, sitting here, writing, because I've been inspired. Inspired by a book I once acted superior towards. Don't you love that? Being proven wrong? It has such a great twisting feeling to it. The book was "Perks of Being a Wallflower", and I always laughed at it because I thought it was just another teen novel that everyone seemed to "relate" to and "love". And the funny truth is, I feel the same way. I put the closed book a foot to my left, and looked up the song I posted because the end of the book made me feel like that song, for some reason. And coincidentally, the music video reminds me of a scene described in the book. "So it goes."

So I realized--maybe I should start documenting more, because it's never too late to remember. And I know I'll need the memories for later.

Once Young

So black was the sky once
that I could not count the mess of scarring stars,
and likened man's architectures to false reality
and likened God's clouds towards a vapid smile.
So red was the moon once
that I felt blue for a scarlet heart,
and likened my footprints to anonymous craters
and likened paid reflection to an emptier world.
So empty was space once
that I could not float too far,
and likened eerie asteroids to older brothers
and likened bottomless belts to warm river veins.
So far was time once,
that I assumed nothing more silent than the nothing in myself,
and likened words to a distorted slate of blankness
and likened him to a fire-breathing untouchable, never human.
So real was sleep once
that I could not feign wake,
and likened friends to welcoming monsters
and likened wholesome novels for a melted page.
So long ago, Long Ago was then, once
that I forgot to swallow the quietest memories,
where I likened ankle bracelets to elements of the night
where vagrant feet could but dream to fly.

Tartness of a Tarot

Luminous imagination, you might see, is the light in my eyes,
my smile tied to the airing stars over
the child's laundry dream,
cradling a revelation as big as our family's
delightful
Cherry pie.
And we were just at the table!
Oh,
to think
of it.
Sitting spoons told me of riches and forks
naively told me what was, or
Where to go. But the way was the
Plate of lonely red, lifting my spirits
for tartness of a tarot.
Unwilling to play, so foolish am I, sister says
and blue as a prairie windmill.
Medieval was my way then, and I can't
win (at chess) anymore
that hopes we
think like kings that always won, so marvelously,
their death.
Coffins bring an ashen peace soon to be wed
forever to the black, and what a questionable plague that gives us
all upon our sleep.

it is the process of
evaporating.

Evaporating

Outside, there came a light.
It was different light upon different light, that procured me to write of it, curiously expressing sunken cheeks like those on the desperately hollow. Those two-toned hands, hopelessly reaching for just one pen on the desk; the one that journeyed its way into some style, some openness that would soon be closed, spilling an evaporation. What was this dream, but to be empty, and where, but to be forgotten? Straws poked up from the ground, waving in the wind, and let her be known--she was talking through the children laughing, whilst my red nails played a painted song.
Its beams called for choosing, and let me be chosen for the time.