I Live a Sheltered Life

To venture off into the unknown had occurred to me, but it never happened. Either I never had the chance, or I let the chance stride by, petrified of the consequences.

This boy embodied the unknown. He was the sex I’d never had, he was the drugs I’d never tried, he was the dancer that I wished I could be.  And he was free. He was so incredibly free.

And I was not. I was stuck within my constrictions, too afraid to take that step into the dark, the beautiful night.

I followed my friend and her group to his house, where they drank. I chose not to. I was a sole outsider, looking in, experiencing something almost sacred in nature. The loosening of tongues and inhibitions with alcohol, the dance that led to bodies being touched, felt, lived. I felt like a voyeur, watching him dance with male and female alike, watching him laugh, watching as he looked into the eyes of his partners as their bodies got to know each other in ways my body did not understand.

It was the most curious of existences, they spoke to me, they included me. I was not one of them. I was laughing, and dancing, and asking, and existing in the presence of gods. And they were gods, in their own right. They transcended gender, they were not afraid of their sexuality. They were confident in who they were.

I watched, as he read a passage, from a book. I watched as he spoke words of sex, and I watched as a girl grabbed at his belt, pulled him in, reeled him in, and I watched him as he let her.

I spoke to him later, across a wide expanse of couch. His voice was smooth, kind. He was more than happy to hold a conversation, to cross the line that existed between my existence and theirs. He was intelligent, interesting, gentle, wild. Everything I wished I could be, but was too afraid to change about myself.

It was late, and I left with my friend, went back to the dorm, speaking of philosophy and privilege, and of beautiful men and women, and how they changed our lives.

All We Have- A Love Poem

There's a terror in the streets,

where zombies stumble, need to eat,

and to survive is quite a feat-

I won't let them hurt you.

Hand in hand we'll stay alive.

We'll pass each test, we'll survive.

And in the end through will and drive-

I will save you.

And nothing can stop us, not the dead and not fate.

Nothing can kill us, for we will escape,

the destiny that we refuse to placate,

for we're better than good, we are the great

who will find a cure to alleviate

this disease that raises the dead.

And I'll fight for you live for you, cry with you, lie with you,

but heaven forbid that I die for you

for then I'd rise to hunt for you,

and so I'd rather lie to you,

and have you die first.

I won't let you lose me, I'm desperate, I'm scared.

We're being hunted, God let us be spared.

And though we're in danger, as well as we have fared,

I'm afraid I'm beginning to no longer care.

You use me, abuse me, destroy me, confuse me.

You beat me, refuse me,

and I know that you need me,

but God if I could leave thee,

in good conscious, believe me,

I would.

But I can't, so we're here, alive and intact.

Our hearts keep on beating, we're on the right track.

And as much as you hurt me, my love bounces back,

But my mind is beginning, beginning to snap.

I love you, I hate you. I need you, placate you.

But I can't escape you except in my mind.

So easy to leave you, look after but I,

But you need to keep company of me and my mind.

So until the end-

you will survive.

I will survive.

We will survive.

For survival is all we have.

A Lonely God

I would like to say that this piece is not aimed at anyone, and is not meant to offend. This is a non-fiction piece that I wrote to help me work through some issues about my own religion. Thank you for reading.

The sky is bright, white clouds traversing lazily over a clear impenetrable blue. Below it lays a darker blue, ripping where wind found purchase on its reflective surface. I stand on a large protruding rock, watching the sky and watching the sea- and thinking. Thinking that, if there is a god (of which I'm not saying there is), that would be where he lay, along that thin line of horizon where the two intensities of blue meet.

I've never questioned my belief in God, or rather, the lack thereof, letting the question slip through my mind should it arise, and certainly now, at the age of 18, it is no time to start. But tragedies and horrors and living nightmares have arisen and are far out of my control. I have nowhere to turn, no one to listen, and nobody who will understand.

But all that is superfluous, as I sit and watch that one thin line, lonely, out on the sea.

I feel a serene, deep-seeded connection with the sea, and the sky, and the rock beneath my feet; a wholeness borne of passivity and observance. I feel complete.

And in that moment, I realize that if there is such a god, if he (or she) does exist on that horizon, how lonely he must be, with all his creations running and scurrying about, attempting to worship him and follow his teachings. No god wrote the Bible, just a man: a man who forgot to teach that the serene contentment that I feel now is the closest way to be to any higher being. Our prayers don't reach any god, those precious mumblings and wishes are heard by no one, leaving the wish up to chance and probability, and sometimes one’s own hands. But never a god, never that power that lies on the horizon. Never that lonely consciousness on the sea.

I am not an atheist. Nor am I an agnostic, or a Christian, Catholic, or Jew, or any organized religion. I don't believe in a god, but I believe in that powerful lonely consciousness on that horizon, a friend, an equal. I believe in the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the Earth, and the wind as it blows through the trees, and the sky and the clouds, and that thin horizon off in the distance where the sky meets the Earth and all is calm.

And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is a god. Maybe I should believe. But what I refuse is the fussing, and the praying, and the Bible, and the prophets, and the mindless ridiculous mulling about that humanity has developed in hopes to please some higher power but does jack squat.

And so I sit, watching the sky, and the sea, and the tide rolling in, and think- how lonely gods must be, worshiped and idoled, without a friend, without an equal, sitting alone on the single line, far off in the distance.

So Guess What!

School's out for summer!

School's out forever!

For me anyhow. High school is done. It's off into the big bad world of college I go. Onward and upward to success. I hope.

Something Neat

I'm not going to go through my usual, "I'm resurrecting this blog from the dead", because instead on promising to do it, I am going to do it. And hopefully pull IO from Quicquidlibet into it too. But that's for another email conversation I have yet to have.

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Okay. So I found this website. I forget how. I think it was through a friend on dA. Anyhow, it's called 750 words, and it encourages you to write just that many words a day. There's even a point system involved, and a one month challenge where you're supposed to do it every day of a month. I use it to rant, to plan stories, to let out all that violent tension that builds up.

I can not recommend it enough. Go try it out.

Meanwhile, I'm off to write 750 words.

Willow by Julia Hoban

It took me about a day and a half to read all 342 pages, and I came away from the experience with an overall pleasant feeling of hope and comfort. Still I would not say that this book is one that you simply "cannot-put-down", though I thoroughly admit to picking it back up again when I got the chance.

Not to give away anything that isn't said on the back of this book, Willow is a 17 year old girl that survived a car accident that slaughtered her parents (she was the one driving), and came away with what would seem to be a bad case of PTSD. To deal with it all, she becomes a cutter, and this story highlights her journey out of the dark recessed of guilt and pain and her gradual recovery from chapters one to sixteen. I should warn you, some of the scenes in the book are graphic. And while she does not recover completely in the course of the story, but she does make significant progress, and it is a quite heartening read. (If you don’t know what a cutter is you can get more information at this Wikipedia entry on self-injury)

As a story that is aimed directly at the teen market, it must be said that it is very well written, and overall a very (and I don't say this lightly) good book. It is a character driven story and all of the characterization done is realistic. The characters, from Willow herself to even the most minor of characters is round, and the changes that happen to the dynamic characters are realistic.

There is a love story within the pages, but I would not say that it is the main focus of the book. It speaks to cutting, pain, family bonds, teenager hood. It is an emotional story of loss and pain and growth and healing.

Back from the dead, well, sort of...

And well sort of is right. I still quite haven't gotten this "keep up the blog" thing down. But I'll get it eventually. (Right?)

In other news, I'm helping to create a permanent writing club at my high school, of which is a neat idea but I'm still not sure how I'm, sorry, we're going to pull it off.

In addition to this I have also started looking at colleges. So far the only colleges that have really caught my attention would be Reed, Carthage, and University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. Northwestern is also pretty interesting, though not on the top of my list. I don't really want to go to a state school, but I will if I have to.

I've also been reading a few books. I shall review them later.

As for writing, sadly, it has gone on the side for the time being. But school will soon be out and I will soon be type-type-typing away at my keyboard (of which the b key is being increasingly stubborn).

Oh well. See you next time.

Light

At 4:38 am, the cellphone's alarm started buzzing uncontrollably, causing the phone to fall off the nightstand and onto the bed. Don groaned, rolled over, groped around for the noise, and turned it off. He turned to roll back into the warm concave his body left under the blanket and stopped.

In five minutes, he jumped out of bed, threw on a t-shirt and jeans, took his meds, and brushed his teeth. He leaped down the stairs, not caring if the thump at the landing woke his parents. They'd be happy for him anyways.

It had been three weeks since Don had seen the sun. It didn't rise until after he was at school, and by the time he left campus, it had usually already set. It had been cloudy far too long for his liking.

He grabbed cereal, mashed it together, shoveled it down his throat as if rushing would help the sun rise faster.

He looked outside. It was still the cold, tinted blue of night, but the snow was gone. The days were getting longer, and warmer.

The coats hung in the hall closet, and he went to fetch one before heading to the back door and stepping out onto the worn wooden deck. He looked at his watch. Three minutes 'til sunrise. He sat down on a recliner and faced east, watching as the sun gradually grew lighter.

The first sliver of sunlight rotated over the horizon, sending out spools of coor that blinded him. The sun rose bit by bit, until it separated from the horizon. It hung low in the sky, steadily climbing still, bathing the boy in it's warm rays. He took off his coat, allowing cold to touch his bare arms, as well as the sun. It was worth it.

He leaned back, and fell back asleep, feeling better than he had in a long time.

Love

She was in love. That's what everybody told her. But wasn't love supposed to be happy? As far as she saw it, love was incinerating who she was, blinding what vision she had, deafening her ears to anything other than what he said. She hated it.

She was obsessed. Every detail of him she had etched into her mind. Every hair, every crease in his face when he smiled. She could recall every last speck of color in his eyes, every last word he had said.

Her body had far depreciated from its original beauty, and the reflection of happiness in her eyes no longer shone.

She reached for her cell phone and dialed. He wasn't going to pick up. She knew that. His father had stopped picking up five phonecalls ago. Still she called.

A futile attempt.

She hung up on the voice mail, letting the phone slip out of her hand.

Standing, she walked over to her desk, and placed her hands on the back of the chair. They gripped at the wood, veins popping out of her skin. Her face twisted into a cruel grimace, and she ripped the chair off the floor, and catapulted it through the air, where it hit and dented the wall.

How dare he go and die on her? She had been so happy with him, and he chose to end it all. Selfish bastard. Was he thinking about her when he pulled the trigger? No. Otherwise he wouldn't have done it. Otherwise, he would be right here now. With her.

But he wasn't.

And she fell back onto the bed, and curled herself into a sphere. She was in love, they told her. In love with a dead man.

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Opinions? Critique?

You know I love critique.

Introduction

The boy stood on the doorstep, raised his hand to the doorbell, and pressed it. Two seconds later, the dampened sound was followed by a shuffling and the door swung open. An old man stepped out.

The young boy took a deep breath, and released his well-rehearsed line. "Hello sir, my name is Adam. My troop is selling wreaths for this Christmas season. Would you like to buy one?"

The old man look out from sad eyes, his face permanantly drooping into a frown.

He shook his head, and apologized. The scout frowned, deflated, and thanked the man for his time.

He trudged to the next door, and rang the doorbell.

"Hello ma'am, my name is Adam. My troop is selling wreaths for this Chrismas season..."

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This is a simple snapshot, but I like it. Please comment and critique.~