find your people, people

It isn't hard for me to get along with people. College has shown me that I can tolerate pretty much anything from anyone. Midnight showers, clanky spoons, people reorganizing the fridge, people talking about people organizing the fridge behind their back, people who google all the Tv spoilers for pretty little liars and gossip girl and the bachelor, and people who don't do dishes. I believe that everyone has something that I can find to like about them. Most people are decent. And its fine and it's bearable and you can deal with it. But the real treat is finding people that you don't have to force yourself to like. People you just vibe with and could go on crazy adventures or just sit around with for hours and it would always be the time of your life.

people who agree with you on tattoos and life pursuits and Tibetan food. The small things. if there is one thing I know its that the small stuff ends up being the important stuff. because it adds up into be big stuff. I've never really been attached to much and I blame that on how much I moved in my childhood. Loyalty has never been a trait that I thought about or considered important. But it's nice to be around people who constantly want to be hugging you

slanted face emoji

I'm trying to remember when things got so complicated. Or even why. The prompt this week in high school creative writing is "I remember" and I feel like everything was simpler back then. I know that's not the case, and when you look back you don't really remember everything that was going on. Just the big stuff. I just don't know how everything got so complicated and cloudy in my head. And I don't even know why it feels that way otherwise I'd get rid of it. I just feel like every thing is meh and bleh and I haven't cried about anything in a while so I know something must be wrong. I just can't figure out how to figure it out. How do you make things simple again

metaphorical alarm clock

my mother used to wake me up for school everyday
now its either the sun or my roommate
and on occasion my phone
I'm sick of relying on other people to wake me out of my funk.
I want to be strong and dependable and I want to wake myself up
I want to be the one to pick myself back up and I want to be able to pat my own back
I'm sick of setting four alarms five minutes apart
I'm sick of hitting snooze
and I'm sick of sleeping through life
I'm ready to wake up




the question is how

cosmic love

you want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey, that's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon

I am the moon
if there is one thing I've learned it's that no one completes you
you don't spend your whole life a half and then become a whole
you're you the whole time.
and maybe you're the sun
and maybe I love you
but how do you do it??
always showing up,
always full
sometimes I'm full..
sometimes you can only see a sliver of me in the dark
sometimes you can see me when the sun is out
those are my favorite days

blank space // best of both worlds // I'm going to double major probably

It's hard when no one plays you back on rapchat.
It's hard when people ask you what you do all day
and you don't even know.
time is slipping into everyone's broken AC vents
I sit here and watch TV and waste away everyday because it's to cold to do anything else.
I mostly do what everyone else is doing
I'm a sheep.
So?
All I ever do anymore is take those personality buzz feed quizzes that tell you nothing/everything about yourself.
Were all just trying to figure ourselves out.
My professor said something the other day in my Humanities class,
to define yourself is to limit yourself.
So I'm not a sheep.
But I am sometimes, most times, a lot of times.
But I am other stuff too.
I'm a soccer player and a sister and a virgo.
I'm a writer (?) and a rapper and a big cry baby,
I am strong even if I don't feel it and I am weak whenever I start to think I'm not.
I can't believe I'm talking about myself in another blog post
But its so important.
Your young adult life is when you are supposed to figure yourself out and choose your major and choose your life
But if you choose the you can't choose something else.
To define yourself is to limit yourself
You identify as an introvert so now you feel like you can't go up and talk to that cool person you want to be friends with because you are shy and awkward and that's not what introverts do.
CAN'T
CAN'T
CAN'T.
My question is who's making these rules?
Who's stopping you?
You aren't unable
You don't have to wait until someone comes up to you first,
nothing is physically stopping you.
You can do anything you want to do and not do anything you don't want to do. So don't make excuses. Don't say you are unable. It all just depends on how much you want something.
Do you want to make friends or do you want to be comfortable?
You don't realize it but you are putting restrictions on your actions.
One second you are everything and anything and this vast person but once you start putting those labels on name tag you start chipping off other parts of yourself.
You're funny so you can't be serious, you're optimistic so you can't be sad
you're going to business school so you can't like art.
you aren't two dimensional.
you're a person with layers and depth and complexities and you can be both sides of everything. You don't know why you do the things you do half the time you just do them. You don't need to explain yourself to anyone, even yourself.

A letter to my 56 drafts:

They tell you its the sad stuff that everyone wants to pay attention to.
The brooding and the aching and the tears, that's the stuff that makes peoples hearts stop.
makes them feel their pulse in their ears and their fingertips. you remember the sad poems because they break your heart every time you read them.
But no one ever goes to a sad poem when they're looking for hope.
Everyone wants to read something that will make their heart cold.
well whats colder than a cold shoulder (whats cooler than being cool?)
They tell you its the sad stuff that everyone wants to pay attention to.
Because it's easier to write.
You can smack your cheating boyfriend in the face with your words
and everyone will snap at you
you can talk about how much you hate your dad hundreds of times
and everyone will get angry with you
you can talk about the ache in your chest every time you see him, with her.
but you can also high five and thumbs up and fall in love and with your words
if you play it right.
and everyone will laugh with you cry with you and feel real with you.
words can blow someones mind without blowing their heart out of their chest
write something you'd want one of your crying siblings to read.
and delete the rest.

why I failed anatomy - a self portrait

Every time I swallow I can feel Etta James in my throat.
In anatomy they tell you everything you ever need to know about yourself.
Like how we sneeze at 100 mph and how it's possible for your bones to self destruct at any minute
but they never tell you where it all came from.
Sure biology or history can tell you that too if you really want
But its too general. Too impersonal
They'll tell you that my smile and the smile of the boy who sits next to me came from the same place
and they'll be wrong/right
His smile comes from some place open and beautiful and cold but like, light jacket cold. Somewhere in the mountains maybe. I'm there too
My smile comes from some place warm and familiar and there is a good couch to take a nap on. Maybe in a cabin somewhere in the mountains. He'll  be there too
My smile came from him, my ears from Aaron Carter
and my guts came from a movie I saw in high school.
I've got the knees of bees'
and the eyes of artists' because I can see the bigger picture
My cheekbones came from all the knock knock jokes
and my heart came from God.
I've got the feet of a 100 meter sprinter just before the gunshots
and the hands of someone who spent too much time on the monkey bars
My elbows and and my brain are actually made from the same tissue because they both can't stop thinking about how funny everything is.
I got my eyebrows off the internet
but my tears are from you.
I've got my fathers phalanges and my mothers jawline
my wrinkly eyes belong to my grandpa
and my back belongs to my grandmother
and my bones belong to me.

I'll ask the questions around here

I've been looking under rocks and behind bleachers and in between pastry shops but I can't seem to find anything beautiful anywhere.
Where did all those metaphors go?
How did I find so many at the beginning and
What do I have to dig up to find more?
what happened to all the clues?
What happened to the tour guide?
I think I need him. sometimes I feel like a detective but most of the time I feel like a tourist.
That was a bad thing right? I can't remember anymore.
I can't remember how to do anything. I need someone to show me everything
I need prompts and video clips and comments and music.
 what happened to the music? and the rain and all the scenery and the other tourists and all the residents.
What happened to Paris?
I tried it. I thought I was tough enough
I thought I had enough of the right stuff
whatever it is.
But like everyone else it seems like this city has chewed me up.
The question is will it spit me out or swallow me whole?
Which would be worse?
Going back after everything you know. After seeing everything you could become.
Trying to make yourself forget. Become numb again.
Or staying. And knowing you might never become what you want to,
But that maybe you could.
Hope.
It's all anyone seems to need these days
and it can give you life and purpose
But boy can it kill you.
It really can.

other wordly

Sometimes I watch the news and I feel ashamed.
There are people who say the natural man is an evil
and there are people who say love yourself flaws and all.
so which is it?
There are people talking about "how the war on terror could
impact your vacation"
There are people talking about missing planes and missing sons
There are people talking about who deserves what and how the boy didn't derserve
to die but the man who killed him doesn't deserve to go on trial.
There are people talking about celebrities who went outside without make up on
There are people talking about children dying for education
There are children dying.
Sometimes I think that the world has made us hard.
But was it not Cain who slayed Abel?
We have been like this since the beginning
There has always been fire inside of all of us
and the earth grieves because of it.
it avalanches and howls and trembles.
It quakes with sorrow.
But I know the world is not always this way.
For it was Cain who slayed Abel
and not two brother who slayed each other.
and where there is terrible and awful
there is also good.
I call my apartment in Logan home and my bedroom in Highland home.
and isn't it comforting?
to know its possible the same person in more than one place?
isn't comforting?
to know that we can become good again?
That we can become who we once were

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