Today I had gym class long and since crutches are B!TCH3$ i had to sit out the whole time. At first I decided to observe the freshman gym class- scene unfolding before me. I feel so different from two years ago, like my life was neatly severed and now I can look back with detachment. Its weird how I'm no longer touched by the same things.

I dont know if anyone else knows what I mean, but there is something oddly akward and embarassing about stumbling upon someone who didnt know they were being watched. Not even that, but someone absorbed so intently on what they are doing, struck by some frenzied passion that they dont even realize the world around them. I noticed one girl was running around frantically with her feild hockey stick, with some wild energy in comparison with the other sluggish lumps of freshmen oozing gym-class hate. She spiraled and leaped and lips curled in a snarl in her own dance. And I saw the way other kids looked at her, and in my mind I urged stop it. Theyll tear you apart. And I saw a couple boys point and laugh and then they began to ignore her, and all throughout their hockey game she ran with bounding skips in her step and her mouth mumuring a thousand unheard words. And one time she looked up after a particular moan of frustration at missing a shot, and she looked like a deer caught in the headlights when our eyes met. And she sunk back into a shell of shyness and stopped acting so crazy. The world around her came rushing up and over her head.

She was embarassed and since I had been the one watching, it was as though I was the one who woke her up, exposed her, and I felt it too. I felt ashamed for her embarassment though. I wondered when things changed- at what age does it become embarassing to feel and depict raw, pure emotion? To laugh to loudly or to dance because you really love feild hockey-- to giggle and hum to yourself when playing because youre filled up with something others cant feel. What part of society made us supress that? I hate whatever tells her that it is strange and ugly to act like that, I hate what it is that makes her feel ashamed.

I was so uncomfortable after that that I hobbled over to the mats in the corner of the gym, closer to my own class. Our class loves eachother. I drifted into throbbing waves of sleep in the comforting yells of my classmates, their shrieking laughter, and their strange chorus of moaning whenever they hit the volleyball, to a cacophony of giggles. This is how it should be



A couple mornings ago, I woke up to find my journal open by my bed and having no recollection of recording this in scratchy, nearly illegible writing, I read:

now I remembered why they shut windows-- couldnt keep the frost from her feet
when they kiss they spit white noise
sank into a sleeping pool of silence unshaved legs like razor slices beneath frothing ocean tide of azure covers
bareboned and raw, her eyes bled red skull = expose ourselves
"you complete me"
he sighed into her yawning and cavernous insides
footsteps, snoring, melodium, pondernative, indication
resilience, brilliance,
END OF THE WORLD



I am... not really sure what to make of that.

Then I wept with my face in your night shirt,

trying hard as hell to say"until death separates us,"

loosening the skin on your breastbone,

I painted your nails and you sleep

while I write all this down.

Grandmother. You were sick.

There was this premature stage that caught you before death; clasped your hand with assurance and played a while before shoving back into your planned grave. This apex when all was a grey, trinkling and tumbling through your insides and mind, a poison in those veins turning from blue to black. A bruise of existence. My most vivid memories are those of china clinking at dinner, and bright hazy lights of warm candels and the chandelier we almost knocked out of the ceiling when jumping on your bed above it. Underneath the warmth of family din there was the silence of what we dont talk about, frozen into our throats like preserved fossils, always the same thing. And when the vomit began was when we three scurried from the dinner table like mice from a threat, cousins like sisters tumbling from the chairs to huddle in the living room. We shut the doors and the shades on the door and pretended we couldnt hear you throwing up. The rasping wails and wretching and horrible splat of semi-congealed food smacking the floor. The croaking yells uttered at the man who married you for fifty some years. And here you had become the mere shadow of the one he promised a life.

Until death separates us.

I was scared to talk to you, because sometimes I couldnt understand what you said. The spittle that pooled in popping and light bubbles around the corners of your faded pink lips, your film of wrinkled chin. The rate of pulsation in your veins was the somber march of illness, the potent kind that runs itself into the ground. Your eyes held no luminoscity, cradled in the raw and tender sockets of your eyes, scooped from skull like perfect, symmetric spoonfuls; a transluncent blue hue, as though you tipped your head back to roiling clouds and filled up your eyes' iris with infinite, indifferent raindrops. When we were about to leave from our weekly visit, I snuck a small peck to your forehead and shut my eyes and held my breath. Usually I was interrupting a fight shut up Shut Up SHUT UP

I thought about those countless days when you must have been in love, you must have been love one day. You must have entwined legs in luxury of cashmere sheets, and the pictures spell the truth; you traveled with bright and fashionable scarves flapping around your neck like the news; I AM ALIVE. You were once pertinent and resilient, until

You were eaten up. The dominant gene, your parting gift to your womb's reguritation; your children's Christmas present long after youd turned a dark enough grey that the doctors decided this is black, this is death, its time to say goodbye. To what though? The thing that made you you had long ago succumb to the irritation, anxiety. The yelling and your soul didnt like what it made you so it slipped away. Out your eears, through the toes of your feet? Through the blood that seeped and accumulated beneath your flimsy sheath of skin, another bruise on the vacuumed skin on your hand? Where does it come from? Is it from The mind that thought and was and lived, with warmth and tenderness towards the three wailing and blood-soaked children you birthed, it found a love that blossomed and spanned years and years. I have proof! The gold locket I wear around my neck everyday, the sunken teeth marks from history. Does it come from that pumping and pulsating heart that stopped beating with youth, and instead began to exhale wearied and bated breaths, having lost their exhultance of vitality .. is that where this poison was made?

Huntingtons Disease. I am petrified, the kind that is paralyzing because where do you go;

where did she go?

You know my build.

You know my size.

The degree to which my eyes are astigmatic.

Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here

i feel like we are brittle human beings and there is this realm of emotion that is tangible and expected to us- we have the capacity for soaring joy and wallowing grief. but then there are these (not even feelings anymore- are they states?) when it goes past what "is fair" what "we should feel" it is this place so concave and hollow to be filled up with a thousand rain-storm tear drops but would forever stay vacant, there are no words you can put in it to close it up, and no words you could paste on it to even describe it. There is sadness, and that is common it is identifyable it is relatable. And then there are things like this that happen and they move into emptiness, this hollow void awash inside us with what- nothing? It is way past tears and im sorry's and its not anything easy to rationalize and it echoes and is lonely, this cavity eating away at the inside but its stomach never feels full, it turns feeling into nothing. how do you describe nothing?

but i dont mean it as I feel nothing, I mean that ..there is this real thing, neither above or below, but something INSIDE those feelings of sadness, its an excessive abundance of painhurtloss sucked into this super dense mass, a black-hole of ..

?

Who will love you?
Who will fight?
Who will fall far behind?

kid i dont know much about you

but i like you, cause youre true blue

GROUPS- haven of those, confused ?
often we are opaque and complex to ourselves, while others are so transparent to us. To place others in a group is to simplify them, to make tangible the lines we feel between ourselves and others. I hate it, really. Like highschool has this seemingly immaculate structure. We even group ourselves, but I believe this might be when we are at our weakest. Haven.

I dont think its possible to hurt others without hurting yourself

Why am I so intimidated by people in groups? What do they consist of? Insecurity, lost, complexity tied into this knot, this dense circle, this black hole that sucks up warmth to itself (untouchable, lonely!) inside this group. But look at the individual parts- you have humans, therefore you have love and beauty and vulnerability and warmth somewhere, and hurt and confusion and desires. Not so threatening. But once you become these individual units, you are no longer a group.

To reach out to other people brings the most pure joy, partially becuase it surprises me. People surprise me everyday

Uplift everybody and uplift yourself

Thats what my tea quote was. And I read it as once you uplift everybody, the latter part will come naturally. I hope this is how they meant it

But restless is causeless and I cannot hide

So much of my mind that it spills outside

and I want to walk around with you

just you just you just you just you

P3OPLE @RE $O B3AUT!FUL!

seriously.

i was taken aback today by this full on rip-tide roar of emotion from Mr. Guerrin today and I appreciated it so much. He was in the middle of checking notes and casually drifted over to his laptop.. before anyone knew what was happening a yell tore from the gutter of his throat and flew around the room, slapping everyone in the face. He jumped high enough to clear his desk. And after this sudden excitement, and expaining why (his pellect stove= approved. YAAAAAA) he just kind of bobbed up and down a little, ran his hands over his hair over and over and over and laughed a bit. And we looked at eachother and luaghed, and looked at him and laughed, and my cheeks eventually turned to stone from smiling so long. And that emotion was still there though-- a brief spurt of it gushed out from every pore of his body, seemingly, when he was transformed with the suddenness, the spontaniety, of joy, that kind of non-diluted RAW joy that I love love love. Why must we always compose ourselves? Erin and I danced and waltzed in the first snow of the year today, exclaiming and screaming for no reason, kissed by multi-million flecks of glass shards, ice licks, stars that can melt. That is raw and real. Mr. Guerrin's first reaction was real. I really really wish that I could express my state of AWE at everything whenever I felt it, because people MUST know they, have to .. but maybe we dont know how to share it yet. This brings me to a point i am going to explain.. i want to transcend myself. I want to give you RAW FEELING and I want to feel yours, coursing through not just my BEING but my HUMAN.

in the secret gallery i witnessed something in someone that i didnt recognize. it was a wall, and it scared me. like everything ive assumed about people up until now is that they all feel these fundamental emotions that we all have-- especially the ones that isolate me. Does that seem backwards? Sometimes I feel alone, but so does everyone-- thats why I feel like my theory of giving away warmth = more warmth for yourself works I think! Because when all we do is look inside ourselves, we see the things that makes us feel disconected or lonely. But when you're looking around, its this wonderful opportunity to study others, and this is how I learnt most about myself. There are so many common things- love, and vulnerability, and things we are scared of and things we do out of selfishness and things that are genuine. By recognizing these in others, I found them in myself. I feel like always looking at oneself, maybe even self-reflection, can get far too one-dimensional, and this went along with an epiphony I had. It gave me huge headache, honestly, I had this sodden lump of emotion behind my eyes and clogging my ears and the world turned grey for a second. I will never look out of anyone's eyes, I will never think their thoughts. This huge, complicated, oh-pity-me life I live-- so INFINTESIMAL! I just want to see, not from my own perspective. I want a mind open enough to engulf others and to be englufed, I wonder how slash if it is possible to get close enough to someone else, to transcend your body (this futile, physical limit to the mind... what is a body in reality? these fleshy, glossy balls of color with an impenetrable black iris in the center- eyes? we put so much resting of eye-contact, but what makes them relatable? And smiles- this grin and baring of the closest you can get to seeing ones skull. Its someone's mind I want to get at, all these get in the way!)

... okay sorry for that brief sidetrack. to transcend the body and be more than oneself, to be others, to be everyone, to be not just a human BEING but a HUMAN, the very essence of human, the LIFE in us, not just the reincarnation of it.

eye donut think i make much cents.

Oh, and we won the biggest game of our soccer season today. Bi!i!iG DEAL

i really just want to paint a lot and learn to play the guitar sitting in my room

oh yeah and read because that opens my mind-walls and erases these assumptions (i hate my assumptions about life. because there is no way to be aware of having them until someone questions them. aka my love of books)

oh yes, and little things, make me s osososos happy. and maybe this is sosssssssosososo selfish, but to know that i occupy space in someones mind for at least an instant- thats something that continually amazes me. Do you know? Your beautiful, precious thoughts, most intimate place of you, I really want to be there once. I want to occupy space in the world, and deliberately.

Don't cool off, I like your warmth

im getting lost in your curls

I am very excited for the future, because

Today in my soccer game my body went through about 3 stages of freezing and thawing. The pelting rain that felt like pinpricks of iciles ran the length of my legs, contracting my muscles into a single, unyeilding mass. On the bench, wrapped in sodden blue blankets, my fingers curled like claws into sweatshirts and I hid behind my friends because I didnt want to go back in because soccer seems so trivial to me lately, I want I want but I just cant get my fingers wrapped around caring and I watched the clouds, booming and ominous and clumped masses of dark grey and crinkled wafts of lighter gray drifting across hazy white until they reached the space of sky behind the soccer bench, where they are sifted and filtered into a midnight blue. At nighttime, do the clouds go away or is it merely too dark to see them? This seemed so much more fascinating than the warrior girls, transformed by inhuman aggression, throwing insults around to undermine the other's play. ttttttttttttttrivial

I got home and underwent a straight half-hour of seizure-like shaking in which I was hot too hot but constantly in motion with tremulous (is this a word?) shivers. The steam from a hot shower felt amazing, and my new thrift store purchase was so wornly-warm, and forgiving, unlike the pulling on of stiff blue jeans straight from the wash, seemingly cold metal stilts clasped to my legs. I was struck with this hope-- that I was in a room with three tall walls of utter white, the color I want to be, pure pure pure pristine untouched , actually touched very much but untainted still and brilliant because one whole wall was window and light could pour in, and also somehow wind and it fluttered the sunflower-golden yellow curtains that trail their flimsy finger-sheets on the sand-colored hardwood floor, a brown honey color, brown sugar soft looking and delicious this room and I would paint in it, or write, or dance, and there is a large piano in the corner and I would only wear large flannel shirts and curly hair and actually be called Emma or Rose and have a child named Grace or Lucy or Will or something actually imaginative and would just create or learn all day.

Whoever left me that honestly box message on facebook (i forgot I even had that stupid pity-me box) absolutely made my day. I dont exactly believe whoever you are, but you defined a nice goal for me to strive for. Yes, I hope I can be that to you or to anyone someday. Thank you for believing! I guess you were stage -3 of my thawing process

If you think you are blue and the rest of the world thinks you are green, which one are you?

Its always so hard for me to say this because I dont like to acknowledge and therefore accept it. I dont like not being okay with things. I have irrational dislikes and annoyances just like everyone does but I really hate settling for them-- if im not okay with something someone does (ie. my mom LOVES to talk about chemistry when I'm busy reading or studying, etc.) then I should get over it myself. I AdJUsT. How can we get angry at other people who are incomplete as well as we are? I feel like getting over myself is becoming more complete personally. So I tend to hide how I feel about things because I know that eventually I'll get over it.. and usually I come to love it. This = more love in my life = good. But recently I havent been able to get over it all the time. This leads to more feelings of discontent and hatred toward things in my life = eats me away inside = holes = not complete = kind of lonely.

dear self, GET OVER YOURSELF. i adsfkjaksdjk;adsd I feel so petty to say this. im sorry

but if youre hurting someone, it must be because you are hurt yourself. If you are hurting me, it must be because I hurt you somehow. I have been trying to be good, be honest, be accepting, be open, I'm trying but i'm inadequate as well. Its so easy to break the cycle --you stop getting hurt and you stop hurting others. You stop hurting others then you stop getting hurt?

I just want to know how you want me need me to change, thats all

I think some people come off as this beacon of cool , like people I look at from afar they are good at things that I want to be good at, they dress how I feel like I want to want to dress like, they make jokes I want to be able to come up with they feel everything and take it in stride, they know who they are they question and still know who they are. They have this glow. Its all the warmth they have, but I D K it just seems like sometimes they keep it to themselves. self-preservation. Absorb it out of others. And thats why we get so close to them, and we crowd around, they look so warm but my fingers are still cold, they generate no heat. THey have all this love bundled up to themselves, it attracts us but only for so far.I got close and felt colder. To be untouchable looks great, looks special, set apart, but it must be horribly lonely. I forget where I was going with this

I just think the easiest way to be happy is to give your warmth away

from personal experience

I witnessed first hand the fight in the cafeteria today, and as other's human impulses to relate and tell others the excitement and unexpected-ness (is that a word?) of this recent event, I kind of just sank into myself and felt like crying. It was just the fleshy smack of fist against cheek, the swell of moisture just beneath his eyelid's brim.. the cruel mechanics of it, the way all eyes turned in wonder or some vindictive sense of amusement or I dont even know.

My yogi tea quote disappointed me for the first time, ever. It said "let things come to you". This may be an insightful lesson later on in my life, but at the moment, bubbling with the vivacity of youth and vitality I really feel like running after things myself. My godsister pointed out that maybe it means to accept the things that have been coming to me, and that I can accept. She also taught me some great new words, and made me wonder if someone can have cordate eyes. Probably not

I wonder when there is the point where honesty becomes futile in the face of how much hurt will be caused. I'd like to be more honest with people, and I'd also like them to like me. It is so easy for me to be vulnerable and open and honest, as long as they are first. There are so many things I want to tell everyone, to tell the world, to tell you. My foundation of assurance is so flimsy as of now, and young, and maybe as it matures I will take more risks. Increase my buoyancy. It is an acrid taste of emotions that I need to sort out

Today I had the awkward encounter of entering the girls bathroom at the same time as another freshman. Silence, mirror-looking, silence. A thought popped into my head that I should say something. I looked and the first thing I noticed about her was her hair, mussed and lightweight and floating freely from her face, yet she was putting a lot of grooming time into it. I told her I liked it, and I feel like lies like these are worth it when I passed her in the hallway at the end of the day and she absolutely beamed. LiT UP!

let this be our little secret

Being happy is this inalienable, absolute state that once I've been dipped in its lukewarm waters, I'll never dry. And I run around and shake and dance in hopes that some drops will land on those around me. It just seems like once I reached joy, it clung to me, unshakable and coloring everything I see. Its a parasite, without any of the negative connotations. Maybe there is no such thing as that

I want to be a pure color white, because it goes so well with every color and makes them all look better.

I lit candles and my room it is all aglow in vanilla and french vanilla teaaaaaaa

oh yeah i didnt take that picture. but one day i will

you can be N. E. thang.

Just remember

Lovers never lose

Cause they are

Free of thoughts unpure

And of thoughts unkind

Gentleness clears the soul

Love cleans the mind

And makes it Free.