Sky Above Clouds IV

"The meaning of a word, to me, is not as exact as the meaning of a color. Colors and shapes make a more definite statement than words. I write this because odd things have been done about me in words. I have often been told what to paint. I am often amazed at the spoken and written word telling me what I have painted. I make this effort because no one else can know how my paintings happen."

-Georgia O'Keefe

Sleepwalking

It is the world woven into dream
until only the opening doors appear

fresh in my mind, always
the restless ins and outs

made stranger by the scrapes up both shins,
the dry blood pooled on my foot,

the plastic box of Command Strips
overturned in the trash can,

as if I had been getting out of something,
or doing jiu-jitsu,

which I am sure I do not know. This woven life
of bedless nights,

of water soaking through my clothes
as I wake unfazed, now obeying

my mother as she leads me back to my room,
now passing the flickering TV and my father

alone on the couch who calls after me
in the dark when I fade

out the door and cross
the wet midnight grass.

And towards what? Some secret.
I remember standing on my brother’s bed

and clawing the line
where the wall met the ceiling,

knocking soccer trophies off the shelf
and onto him as he slept,

as if that line would unravel
the mystery.

How long it will take to get back inside
once the lock has clicked into its groove

because it is cold
and I am half-naked.

How long it will take to make it out
for real this time,

if that is what I am doing,
because each door is a new sadness,

just like the morning I wake up
and feel the world is suddenly new,

only to realize I put a sweater on in my sleep,
which is why I am waking warm and enfolded.

Papyri

We lie tangled—

you, asleep, and I,

still as Nike

(headless, armless, too).

Tungsten

My little bother’s got a loop
of Tungsten buried inside;

thirteen, this silent wonderboy,
and beautiful and silly (still!).

His tectonic plate project
half-convinced me he had
made the world, engraved
faults into cardboard-earth
with scissors, named the dry
land and all the wet stuff sea.

Little brother, I say—but
I never find the words with
him—I say,

little brother—not so little,
maybe, but the name won’t
change now—I say,

little brother: unearth yourself,
and be silly (still).



(The first thing I have written in a long, long time!)

Sing! Sing! Sing!

I do not know your words
or your melody but I will
open my mouth and I will
sing loud for you.

And even though it may
seem simple,

it will be the hardest thing
I have done.

Something I Realize Often:

I care far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far too much about what people I don't even know think about me.

Limbo

So I wrote this for a sketch journal during the end of February at 11:30 the night before it was due. For the prompt, we were given a phrase to use as a title and jumping off point.


Being Here

Being here is harder than it should be. It’s more discouraging than I expected, more painful to see the blank page than it has been before. Not knowing what will happen in the space that links one sentence to the next is a little bit like being underwater in the dark or falling asleep in the daytime.

The sources of my worry have become endless. I am tired and I need to sleep, but there is too much to be done before tomorrow and the day after that. I don’t know where I am going to college. I don’t know what I will study in college. I don’t know what I will do after college, how I will make money, where I will find work, whether or not I will be able to make a living and succeed—I don’t have a definition for success or failure, either.

I don’t have a definition for a lot of things.

There is too much I don’t understand, like politics and art. It all seems far too complex to wrap my mind around, especially since I’ve started feeling tired and unfocused all of the time. It makes me nervous and terrified, in a sense. There are just too many things to fill my days, too many places I need to get to. There are so many books I need to read, so many stories I think I want to tell, but I can never figure out what they are about (if I could do this, everything might be easier).

Being here reminds me that I need to sleep but also that I have too many things I have to do before that. I’m feeling apprehensive, and my throat keeps drying out every five minutes, and the clock just keeps moving me forward. Being here is a funny thing, and I always prefer writing in the present, maybe just because it’s easy.

-

It's interesting for me to look at what has changed since I wrote this. I finally do know where I am going to college, but I am no less apprehensive about it and what will happen during and after it. If anything, making the decision has only made the reality of going away next year more real. I'm no doubt still in denial, just like I'm in denial that school is over and that I have to move on (though I'm not really done--I still have a final tomorrow, along with a make-up AP French exam).

This means that is the work is just about over, and that means summer. I am both incredibly excited and nervous for this summer. I worry that I will waste it, that I won't do enough, that I won't do anything new or take any risks. I never take risks. I worry too much about trying to figure people out that I reduce everything to a constant game of waiting. I've been complaining a lot recently about my irrational fears because they are truly ridiculous and make things a whole lot more difficult than they need to be. It makes me want to rip out my hair and sometimes my teeth. I have already done the bang-my-head-against-my-locker thing. I am sometimes a mess.

Anway, today I was watching Will & Grace (HAHAHAHAHAHA), and it was the last episode of the last season. It made me really sad because in the end, it moved into the futures of the main characters. Seeing them older somehow made the reality of aging more real than it has ever been. I am worried that I will waste not only my summer, but my entire life. I could see myself waiting it away. While watching the episode, I imagined myself never getting off of my couch, never doing anything, never accomplishing anything. It was pretty devastating. I'm nervous and worried and stressed out, and I thought it was supposed to be summer.

I really don't know what to do. I feel torn. I feel like I am stuck in limbo (like the tooth fairy in Toothless). I don't know whether I should be realistic at this point or do something risky, something semi-illogical. But is it illogical? I seem like a logical person, but really I don't have any sense of logic. I can rarely figure things out. I keep telling myself, "You will regret being static. You will regret sitting on your ass and not putting yourself out there." I can hear myself saying this, but sometimes I open my mouth and decide to wait.