How I've felt about writing lately,

This is a #stolen piece and although (luckily) none of us can relate to this, it is still important to read

“Dear Ma,
I’m sure the news has reached you by now. I hear
the police cars outside, their deafening sirens a
welcome change from the dead silence in the
classroom.
I don’t think I will make it. It’s getting harder to
breathe and I am feeling drowsy. I wish you were
here. Fussing over me like you do when I hurt
myself. You’re probably outside the school gates
right now. I am hoping you can hear my thoughts.
We were in English period when they stormed into
the class. It all happened so fast I didn’t have
time to think. They shot ma’am first. “Get under
your tables” she yelled before she fell to the
ground. We scrambled to hide under them.
I sat still, my eyes on the floor as a pair of black
shoes got closer and closer. His shoes were a lot
bigger than mine. I was too afraid to look at his
face. He shot me twice. One in each leg. I fell to
the floor in seconds. Ahmed who sat beside me
screamed when he saw the blood oozing out of my
legs. They shot him in the chest thrice. No one
screamed after that.
I lay very still and pressed my eyes shut.
Pretending to be dead as I waited to get shot
again. Each time I heard a gunshot, I would hold
my breath and wait for the pain. But they didn’t
shoot me again. “We’re done here. Keep moving”
someone said. Their footsteps ringing in my head
long after they were gone.
I lay there, looking around the classroom. The
silence interrupted only by the sound of the fan,
that continued to spin as if nothing had happened.
You know Ma, I realise that lives have no value.
It makes me wonder why you insisted that I finish
my homework before school. Why you spent hours
teaching me geometry. Why you get angry when I
chew loudly. Doesn’t it seem like such a waste
now?
To spend our time on petty things, like
Potassium’s position in the periodic table, learning
my mother tongue, or remembering to be a
gentleman. None of it could save me.
At dinner yesterday, you told me not to eat another
jamun. That if I take care of my health, I would live
a long life. Ma, it seems so ridiculous now, that we
celebrated my birthday last week. The cake, the
presents, my favourite caramel pudding. Like a
prank we didn’t know we were falling for.
In these 5 minutes I realised, that the world has no
appreciation for beauty. For friendship. For
laughter.
It didn’t matter to them that Zara was to perform
for us after class this afternoon. That Ahmed and I
planned on buying ice-cream after school. That
Samah was going to get the prize for being the
Science topper. Everyone died anyway.
You know ma, we invest in our lives with such a
relentless passion, not once realising how fragile it
is. You drive me to music class twice a week.
Mark sums on my textbook for me to answer. You
tell me to remember to be polite, learn my lessons
and eat healthy.
But ma, no one was spared. Not even the ones
who finished their breakfast. The ones who handed
in their homework. Or the ones who prayed this
morning.
Ma, I don’t think I can stay awake much longer.
And I think I will breathe my last, lying on this
battlefield of scattered bodies, shoes and
stationery.
My English textbook lies beside me on the floor.
Still open on the same page it was at when they
stormed in. I close my eyes one last time, because
I cannot bear to look at it any longer.

Seems almost absurd now, that a world like this,
 could inspire poetry.”

a lazy way to pretend to get your life together

They say that these are the years where you figure out who you are and everything changes and you become who you were always supposed to be and you grown into yourself and "just wait you'll see" and "someday you'll understand" And I'm in college and I'm 18 so I guess that day they were talking about is today. And boy were they right. About some of the stuff. I still don't understand cat people or abusive relationships or what being vegan actually means but I have learned a lot since graduation day.
I've learned how to cook carrot cake and hash browns and it turns out you can make top ramen in the microwave and it also turns out there is more than two flavors of top ramen (team oriental). I've learned to pay attention to expiration dates and that there is no difference between brand name and knockoff cereal but there is a HUGE difference between knockoff pop-tarts and name brand (always go name brand) I've learned that not everyone likes to sleep at the same temperature and that I am not good at keeping in touch with people. I've learned that there isn't actually a lot that people know about me. A lot know all these facts and stories but they don't know the little stuff. And by little stuff I mean a lot off little stuff that accumulates into one big stuff. You learn more when you live with a person than you do when you are best friends with them for 5 years. I don't consider my roommates better friends than my high school friends but they definitely know me better than them. And its no ones fault. Some things just never came up between third and fourth period and during football games. I've learned more about a girl I've know since 8th grade here in these few months of college than I have in the entire time prior. And she is just as great as I always thought she would be. I've learned that long car rides can make or break all relationships. I've learned that high school poetry slams were better than the college ones but for different reasons. I've learned not to rush things. I've learned that there are boys you hang out with and boys you date and often they can't be both. I've learned that 18 year old boys are just about as dumb as everyone gives them credit for. I've learned that it's ok to not go on a lot of dates even if it makes you sad sometimes. I've learned its ok to be in college and not have been kissed. And if you want your first kiss its ok to go out and get it. But if you want it to be special or meaningful you might have to wait and that's ok and if you don't care that's ok too. I've learned that the only rules here are the ones you make for yourself. And you can change them if you want to. I've learned that changing your mind doesn't make you a hypocrite. I've learned that everyone hates their roommate's boyfriend. I've learned how to deal with people who listen to country music (HERE THAT SAM. IT IS POSSIBLE) I've learned that I'm the only one in my apartment who watches the news and Keeping up with the Kardashians. And the only one who hates peanut butter. And the only one who doesn't make their bed everyday. I've been known as the candle roommate and I don't hate it.

I've learned that being 18 doesn't really mean anything except that now you don't have to sneak into the frat parties. Your an adult but your still a youth. Teen is still attached to that number. Which is very comforting. I'm 18 and I don't have my life together. And no one really expects me to. I'm only 18. There are people who are 23 who are still going on blind dates and meeting up with people on tinder and they don't have their life together and its ok if I don't either. I've learned that I'm only 18 and I've got my whole life ahead of me. I mean I really know it. At the rate I'm going I could finish college in three years, I could finish college at 21. That's hardly a forth of my life and that's the only real part that society kind of helps you plan out. I don't really plan things. I didn't even know what college I was going to until March. And I didn't really care. I didn't have any expectations for my future because honestly I wasn't sure if I was going to make it this far. I don't know what I want out of my life. Long term isn't my thing. But to help prolong my inevitable life crisis for as long as possible I have decided to make a, not so much a plan, setting a list of reasonable goals to accomplish sometime in my life. How ever long or short it may be. A cliched sort of bucket list if you will. Except everything on this bucket list is level headed and reasonable.
Because I am an adult now.

1. Receive a Noble Prize
2. Have a dog
3. Work at the Forever 21 in Times Square
4. Live/work in the Red Wood National Forest for a period of time
5. Earn a college degree
6. Have a seal
7. Be in love
8. Write an episode of a TV show
9. Live in my car
10. Go to the Ellen DeGeneres show
11. Own a water bed
12. Own furniture that isn't from Ikea (I already own furniture from Ikea)
13. Try quinoa
14. Live in Oregon for a period of time
15. Own a whisk
16. Raise multiple children
17. Keep a plant alive for more than 2 months
18. Work somewhere where I earn a salary
19. Live to see my mom get everything she deserves
20. Learn to like green smoothies. And beans. And peas. And more vegetables
21. Take care of my grandparents farm
22. Have my car break down and need to push it somewhere
23. Hike to the top of something.
24. Meet Jimmy Fallon
25. Own my own pair of roller skates
26. Learn to play the bongos
27. Beat my brother at a video game that isn't dance related
28. Name a candle
29. Vote
30. Own my own living space (mansion/apartment/shack/house)
31. See my siblings fall in love
32. Ride an elephant
33. Feel connected to the planet? (idk what this means I just like the outdoors and need to be there more)
34. Learn two languages (FOR REAL)
35. Give birth
36. Hug an orangutan
37. Make a positive difference in someones life
38. Rap
39. Almost die
40. Die
41. Feel whole

and life is a nightmare

I called him a kid and I didn't mean it. I just wanted him to remember this is only the beginning. Not only the beginning of a lot of problems and a lot of heart ache, but the beginning of life. Not because his feelings were invalid but because soon the whole thing would be put into perspective. And then he would be even less of a kid. There is a part in Perks of Being a Wallflower (cliche I know) where Charlie sees a bunch of kids sledding on a hill and he starts to think about how someday these kids are going to have to get jobs and kiss somebody and grow up but not until later. And how right now sledding is enough for them and that's all they have to care about and how he wishes that's all anybody had to care about. And I think that's what it comes down to really. That's how you know you aren't a kid anymore. The more things you care about the more years you add onto your heart. That's why the Presidents all look so old. I think that's why growing up is so confusing for everyone, I know people in high school who are more grown up than people in college and maybe that's the sad part of it all. The heartache that people feel in their youth should be celebrated. It means your becoming. It means your finding things and allowing them inside of you and allowing them to move you. I'll let you in on a secret, people don't say that these were the best years of their lives because that's when they had the most fun, no, you'll have fun your whole life. It doesn't even out and suddenly become a smooth ride, you'll always have something to worry about. The reason people say these were the best years of their lives is because they became who they are. There are few things more painful than becoming, but few things more rewarding than knowing who we are. People say you can go throughout your whole life without ever living it, but no one ever tells you that you can age without actually growing up.

"We never know the wine we are becoming while we are being crushed like grapes."

-Henri Nouwen

"I got tired, I told him. Not worn out, but worn through. Like one of those wives w ho wakes up one morning and says I can't bake any more bread.

You never bake bread, he wrote, and we were still joking.

Then it's like I woke up and baked bread, I said, and we were joking even then. I wondered will there come a time when we won't be joking? And what would it look like? And how would that feel?

When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calender that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from the chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.

I spent my life learning to feel less.

Every day I felt less.

Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” 

― Jonathan Safran Foer

coming from a person who loves love

Every time I try to write about love I just keep writing myself out of love and its crappy and I am sick of it. I used to have ideals!! Then things happen and you see other people get hurt and your neighbors fall out of love and your parents start sleeping in separate rooms and you move out to college and I guess we all have grow up and wake up sometime. The thing that no one tells you about marriage is that the percent who stay together get by just barely. They don't tell you that some of the people who are married don't even actually love each other. Sure they tell you its going to be hard, but no one talks about sleeping on the couch or hour long drives so you don't have to let it out in front of the kids. Everyone talks about being real with each other but how can you be? They're gonna know about all the times you skipped the gym and all the times you cried when your dad called and all the times you almost swore and all the times you did swear and all the times you talked about how you hate people who swear. And who's gonna want to live with that? Too inconsistent too contradicting too much of a mess to even keep a cactus alive. too tired. And that's why love is great. Because when it works its total acceptance and that's all that anyone wants really, to be told that we aren't crazy and that our feelings are valid and that it's okay.. It isn't looking past someones flaws, its embracing their flaws and recognizing that their flaws are apart of them and make them who they are. I guess once you get past the "mush honeymoon magic mega awesome" love phase and you get into the "for real" (these are the technical terms) love phase it comes down to finding the person who you are gonna be annoyed with/want to kill the least. Which if you hate them the least it also means you love them the most so I guess that does make sense. Love, how magical.


 the best love poem I've ever read.

#college

Lets talk about how I was excited to live with a bunch of strangers so I could see them be real and raw and make me feel less crazy and like we're all just trying to figure it out well GUESS WHAT they are all perfect and eat salad all the time and I am behind on everything. My hair my clothes my physique my social skills my spirituality my relationship status my cleaning habits and my whole being a better person thing are all mediocre in comparison to them. But besides the huge burden of my roommates being perfect all the time they are amazing and I got lucky to randomly have them. I am trapped in a room on the top floor of a building with five strangers and I love it. Finding the upside of everything is what keeps me going. I haven't gone to class on a Friday yet and I've been going to school for three weeks. So yay for education. I'm undeclared and basically everyone else is too. Or they are going to be a teacher or a doctor. It seems like everyone's got everything figured out, or they have figured out that they haven't got anything figured out and I am just waking up from a nap wondering what day it is.
You know when you are a sophomore and you look at the seniors and you can't ever imagine that you will make it to that point and you wonder what you will be like when you are a senior and then you become a senior and you realize you are the exact same and you don't feel like a senior and you feel like you don't look like all the other seniors when they were seniors? Yeah well college is basically the same thing.
I brought up three plants with me to college and two have already died.
Nothing has changed since high school. I'm still to much and I still drown everyone in everything.

I've been doing a lot of online shopping okay??????

I've been trying to get back in touch with my roots but I think I've dyed them too much 

This is about sharing a couch with someone at an old friends house and how it felt like home. This is about home.

This is about having eggs for breakfast every morning and trying not to step on eggshells. Its about new hair cuts and how I only published two blog posts since school ended. It's not about trips to Vegas and its not about getting that summer beach bod and its certainly not about high school. Its about working and wearing pants and summer homework and people getting offended when you offer to take out their groceries. Its about finding out people have girlfriends and being to lazy to make this post into an actual thing. It's about last days of work that make you cry and last days of school that didn't and last days of summer that will. The break is over and the package is sealed. All wrapped up with plastic and packing peanuts and in a dingy old shoe box that should say FRAGILE. HANDLE WITH CARE. but it just says THIS SIDE UP and none of us even know where we're going. And we don't know what we'll be like when we get there. All we can do is hope the mail man doesn't drop us and that wherever we go the person who opens us up is gentle enough to put us back together.

pressure/ice ice baby/they both sound the same

Lately I've been feeling like writing on this blog is a huge chore because I feel like I have to dazzle everyone and give them chills and all that jazz so I haven't been posting anything because I don't feel like it's gripping/heartbreaking/amazing enough BECAUSE I GUESS I WRITE FOR THE COMMENTS OKAY?!? Ugh. Everything about this whole blog and #hashtagsummerblogs has just become something hanging over my head which is sad because writing and connecting with people and getting all my emotions out there is something I have always loved and it doesn't seem to feel like that anymore. I'm tired of thinking of new concepts and killer metaphors and I'm tired of having more drafts than published posts. So sometimes I feel like its best to write like this in a stream of consciousness sort of way because it's present and direct and you al get what I'm trying to say and I don't have to be abstract or anything. But then I look at all my other published posts and THEY ARE ALL STREAM OF  CONSCIOUSNESS. I dunno maybe I just do better with #realtalk than #fancytalk and maybe I'm a one trick pony (is that the right saying?? I'm sorry, it's midnight) and maybe I won't be able to inspire anyone and maybe my writing is less of a rip your heart out of your chest type and more of a pat on the back "it's going to be alright" type and maybe that's okay.

Being called names is probably the worst :/

About 5 minutes ago I heard screaming and swearing and pounding on the door and I've never been more real than right now when I say I miss being in elementary school.
My parents are out of town and I'm in charge and I got home from work at 10 and found my two little sisters home alone and my brother no where in sight. I called and I txted and I screamed but he refused to tell me where he was or what he was doing anything so I told him if he wasn't home by 1:00 I was locking the doors and he was outside for the night and I've never been more for real than when I said that.
1:00 rolls around and he doesn't.
1:05 nothing
1:10 nope
1:25 finally
It's  1:30 and five minutes ago my brother pounded on the door and screamed for me to let him in and called me a bitch.
I guess I wasn't being for real when I said I'd make him sleep outside. But I was being for real about the elementary school part.

rap music is everything

the lyrics are killer. that's all.

I wanna know what love is

I know the lyrics to every song on the radio and I haven't heard half of them. Life is getting to be too predictable. I answer you aren't there. I don't answer you're angry. The next day everything is fine. Is this what love is? Ignoring everything? But accepting that the other person is ignoring everything too? I used to think I knew what love was. Something soft that you could wrap yourself around. I never thought the inside would be full of thorns and smell terrible. I bought new perfume just so I could bare it. Is this what love is? Smashing all the expensive vases and sticking around to glue them back together?

Thoughts on not counting as an adult

I go to a different church building now and the chairs are hard and my mom changed the laundry detergent she uses and nothing seems to be soft anymore.. Welcome to the real world I guess. Also I went to Walmart and my brother wanted me to buy him a COD game and the cashier asked for my ID because I had to be 17 but I didn't have it with me and the lady got her supervisor and she said WORD FOR WORD "well you don't have any ID and you don't even look 17 anyways so I really can't give this game to you. I hate Walmart.. But you can get a packet of hot chocolate there for 50 cents so I don't hate it that much. Also I was at Home Depot looking at countertops the other day when this like 45 year old woman started asking me which countertop sample I liked better and showing me pictures of her house and her family and all her 27 year old sons and then asking me again about what I thought would look best with her forest green wallpaper and genaric wood cabinets and I started to talk about my interior design class and she asked where I was going to school and so I told her I just graduated and would be going to utah state in the fall and she said oh that's nice AND UP AND LEFT all because she realized I was in high school and some idiot like listen up lady  just because in 16 doesn't mean I don't know what I m talking about  your countertops are tacky and I am trying to help you. I'm sick of age and never being the right thing for anybody. Like yeah I am old enough to have to go to work everyday but not old enough to buy a freakin video game or alcohol but I'm old enough that I should know what I am doing with my life but not old enough for anyone to take anything I say seriouslyi have never really felt like respect was something I cared a lot about because I didn't really care what people thought of me but now I find myself wishing people would take me seriously sometimes which is weird maybe I'm turning into an adult how disgusting.. we'll see how this goes


College is going to be cool hopefully/probably/obviously