Who knew?

I guess I'm a little surprised that I kind of like this.

Thursday

Tears come more frequently lately. I don't write enough anymore. I'm kind of stressed about life, and I don't know how to control anything, or what to do about anything at all.

I'm very tired in several ways... more emotionally than anything? I did not intend to start the semester that way. I don't know what to do.

I wanted to write a poem, but I don't think it will come tonight.

Wilderness

How does one become disciplined to do something every day? I miss writing. I miss having a sense of accomplishment, instead of discouragement and frustration and the constant running and running and running from one thing to the next, living moment by moment with hardly a moment to breathe in between. And yet it seems to be the things I want to do the most that seem the farthest away. The show in the fall: in a city forty-five minutes away when I don't have a way to get there of which I know, and required presence at some other rehearsals later on that I'd have to negotiate. And being at Cedarville: I wasn't supposed to be back this year. I didn't want to be. Why am I still going back?

Maybe I'll write a poem later. But right now, it's all I can do to form words into sentences on here, let alone be creative.

I'm sunburned. It hurts.

Beast

I haven't written a poem in a while, and while I feel a desire to do so now, I guess that desire isn't strong enough to result in a few scattered lines of verse in this empty white box, some void I guess I'm trying to fill any way I know how.

But I've been thinking about writing. I've been working on a play. I wonder if the reason I write fiction when I'm home is because I so badly need to do so. I've always known that writing is an escape... but I've felt like it isn't lately. I mean, I don't consciously do it to escape anymore. Okay, I guess in high school it was relatively subconscious... but I suppose I always knew, somewhere inside of something, that it was an escape when I would go into the computer room, shut the tall wooden doors, and scroll up after every paragraph or page or whatever so that anyone who dared wander in wouldn't catch a single glimpse of the world I was creating on paper. That was my world. I didn't usually let people into it, and when I did let people see, they just saw pretty pictures I'd painted that showed them what they wanted to see, even if it wasn't quite the way life was. Real life is ugly sometimes, you know? It's not white and clean and pretty and pure. It's sweaty and dirty and grimy and bloody and sensual and oh-so-hot... but then you look at those faces and somehow they're beautiful even with sweat dragging lines into cheeks and foreheads, streaking the makeup, black mascara lines running like watercolors or maybe like tears into foundation and powder and blush.

Scream

I tried to escape you living vicariously through me
by doing the same thing you wanted me to do.
It was always such a secret escape for me,
and yet it was almost everything you ever wanted!
How does that work? How is that even fair?

And I never even realized until years after I stopped.

Lessons learned, and things

The flowers divided prettily among four thin vases (really empty Jones Soda bottles) and sitting on my desk, computer cart, other desk, and dresser do a lovely job of brightening up my room.

I like performing in real roles in things, even if it's scary.

Margaritas are amazing things. They taste wonderful.

I want to learn to be more outgoing all the time... I don't like getting quiet. I don't like being insecure.

I want people to love me.

Water with lemon and lime is nice, too. I always take the lemon and lime slices off the side of the glass so they can flavor the water. It tastes good that way.

I don't like it when people talk about other people. And I wonder what people think of me... what they think of me.

I want to keep performing in musicals
and having flowers
and drinking margaritas.

To Do

It's been a while since I wrote a poem. That's kind of sad... I want to get back into the habit of writing poetry every day. I miss it desperately.

Prose

The pond about half a mile behind the neighbors' house was Magic. We didn't understand how, or why, only that we had been blessed with it. Sometimes it was there, and sometimes it was not. We didn't realize that the days it was not there were also the days when we could not remember the last time it rained, or a time when the air had not been so humid and heavy. And we did not connect that the times the pond was the fullest and deepest were right after a thick, full, heavy downpour. We only knew that sometimes, the pond was there, and it was amazing, and sometimes, the pond disappeared, and then, it was magic. It had to be magic.

Our parents never came back to the pond. They didn't like it that we went there, either. Often, they didn't let us go back there. "No. There are snakes." "There's probably poison ivy." "Oh, come on. Can't you just stay here and play in our woods?" But our woods weren't the same. This... this was magical. It was a Realm of Faerie or a Narnia all our own. And sometimes, they did let us go.

We would zip up our boots and plead permission to go in the woods. Our feet squished down in the soggy grass.