a new perspective.

I don’t know if I like you. I thought I did. Your description as a hopeless romantic and your wonderfully obsessive book collection mingled in with the low notes of your voice and your strikingly dark hair. Your sense of humor was entertaining and your romanticism overwhelming. And I thought, here is a lover.

But you are bitter. So bitter. And I’m not saying it’s unjustified, I cannot judge its justification. But just being around that hurts me. Viciously self-centered and painfully unloving at times. Your scales are heavily weighted and set high and that pedestal even higher. I pity the poor child you will place up there. Perhaps its just something I don’t understand about you, but I could feel you sacrificing people for purity, for an exaggerated sense of honor…if that really makes sense so out of context.

I like to think I get along well with many and judge few…but your words rub the wrong way, and I’m getting raw. I suppose what I’m saying is that once I loved to be around you…and now I have to force myself to be civil.

Lord, I pray for Your love overflowing through me. I pray for patience, acceptance and understanding towards others. Please don't allow me to become embittered. Please.

sometimes i wonder...
i often console myself with the thought that many things that bother me are really very childish. and that it will all heal eventually, and that when i grow up ill look back at these things and smile and shake my head for how seriously i felt them. just painless marks of remembrance on skin.

then i get really scared...
and im afraid these things wont heal. im afraid it will always be a struggle to not think of things, to not remember. sometimes im afraid this is it and that its just all going downhill from here. im afraid itll still hurt while i watch my children's children make these mistakes. im afraid ill still have regrets.

sometimes im afraid i dont have much growing up left. grown up has always been painted as this time when things like this dont bother you, where you dont struggle with these childish things anymore. grown up is this time when the slate get wiped clean...nothing from your past hurts you anymore because youre grown up...and things like that dont hurt grown ups.

i also have a problem extracting good motives from bad. they get so tangled up sometimes.

sudden stripes of realism in a world of idealism
race across my mind like a line
from an indie film
and this is the soundtrack to my day (or are they nightmares?)
i miss it again and i wish i could stay
gleaming chrome in the bathroom sink
or the bleached sky on a winter day,
crossing the bridge to somewhere
i dont care
as long as im going away.
away from here.
this place i made
i meant to stay
but you pushed me too far
today
i wont look back again
but then again
you never did?
i'll never say
forever again.

still awake...

im lonely again

and i really dont deserve this break...i havent been working very hard.

im confused.
lonely.
sad.
scared.
worried.
apprehensive.

im watching a jealous God rip everthing that has ever meant anything to me away. it hurts. and im tired. i dont want to wake up tomorrow...that means i have to remember. remember what you ask? remember how lonely and confused and sad and scared and worried and apprehensive i am. remember how many voices are demanding i be perfect (and dont even bother to write that i neednt be...they wont listen, they never have). hell, not perfect...decent, serviceable, working. but thats just the problem...im not working. im broken. my heart is broken, and not in the romantic way.

im a wimp

ive been working steady for a little under two hours and i had to take a break. im hungry, but at the moment i think ive managed to get myself locked in mills. this is good because it means i can just keep working until im done w/o worrying about mr. security guard (and its one i havent seen AGAIN!). on the upside, ive finished 3 of 5 journal reviews! fuzzah! (as simon would say) i think i want to sneak over to founders and get some food...oh, and pick up my keys, i forgot that getting locked in mills means im locked out of founders..heh heh.

these are secrets i dont want to tell you

i want to sing with someone...in front of no one.
i want someone to hold me when i tell them not to.
i asked God for a miracle tonight, ive never done that.
i dont know if He said yes.
i want someone to see past me.
past my hands held up.
and past my threats.
past what society tells them.
past what covenant tells them
i want someone to see past what they think im saying.
hello elevator
do you bring comfort?
or a distant stare?
or an empty ride?
do you bring a miracle?
or a sin?
or do you just pass by...pistons and gears pushing away, doing only what we told you to. scraping by the doors, going up and away from me?
or do you sit with me on this third floor, waiting...still and silent but for the wind echoing in your emptiness.

when is manipulation not manipulation? when is it just a cry out for someone to love me?

hello
i am hurt.
i am broken.
i have run away from what i cannot understand
i know God.
and thats all i know

dont pity me.
dont come to me with warm words.
i wont believe them.
i wont hear them.
i wont hear you.

when is it not manipulation? when am i just coming up to a friend and asking them to love me? if i ask you honestly, if my words to you are: "i need you to love me" i am not hiding anything. if i say something and really mean it, it's not manipulation. if i ask you for something and thats what i want, it's not manipulation.

im tired and i dont want to sleep.

thunderstorms are good for long talks...and patching things up with people. lightning is good for watching. im glad things happen the way they do because i know there's always something im missing in my perspective...and God sees it. and i know that He sees all of it. and that makes me content.

am i more of an idealist? or less? are my standards lower or higher? i dont think that the story was ruined. a written story is not easily ruined. i dont think poe could ever be truly ruined on a night like this. i can choose to block certain things out of my memory...if i so choose.

...what security guard?

ruhama

Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
She shall pursue her lovers
but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
but shall not find them.

writing secrets on leaves
like "i lost my faith"
and "i dont think he ever loved me"
i found we're all just glass and paint
and we break much too easily.

if you could go back
relive it all again
would you make the same decision,
knowing only what you knew then?

do i really have such a high internal moral standard? is this why i cant bring myself to be anything more than cooly polite to guys i know like me and who i know i wont like? is this why i get so angry at others? i cant seem to pretend i dont know information i hold. "just pretend its not true"...but it IS. it is true and i know its true and if i act as if i do not have this knowledge, i fear i will lead the guy on and then hurt him. i fear giving him false hope. i cannot do these things in good conscience. to me, it is deception, it is morally wrong. and therefore, it absolutely kills me when i see someone else do it. do i place such a high personal responsibility on myself that i cannot abide someone who does not assume the responsibility that i feel is theirs?

i dont know. i really dont know much of why ive been so angry lately.

though ive written every part
and i learned each chord by heart
all my singing's only prose
ive forgotten how the music goes.

or maybe its just jealousy. yes, i believe there is a very substantial dose of jealousy in there somewhere.

barbeque, buses, and tea parties

tonight was surreal. to celebrate the completion of bekah's paper, we drove down the mountain just as the thunderstorm began. the storm, however, was not a torrential downpour, more of a constant backdrop setting. we went to sticky fingers because alex was working tonight and we wanted to cheer him up a bit. so the four of us got a booth and split two pies, fighting over bites with our spoons. amy sue and aaron took the lemons from our water and ate them with hot sauce. then proceeded to suck on them and put the various barbeque sauces on them. when we had finished the pie and lemons, alex gave us balloons which sit at the top of my ceiling right now. we skipped along in downtown chatty, in the rain and lightning, jumping in puddles, with balloons tied around our wrists. amy sue and i stood together and jumped into a huge puddle. then, while waiting at the intersection for the walk signal, we were chatting and laughing. the signal turned to walk, and we bounded into the crosswalk. looking left, i saw this bus pass the line and continue through the intersection. i was puzzled and suddenly the realization that the bus was coming straight at us hit. i reached out and grabbed amy sue's sleeve and pulled her back as i jumped back myself. the bus stopped two and a half feet from us. the thing i remember most about it was that the bus driver had absolutely no expression on his face. he just stared at us with blank eyes. we stood there with him stopped, and he didnt motion to us to cross...just stared. we hesitantly stepped in front of the bus and hastened across the rest of the street. giddy with laughter and adrenaline and thanking God for his protection. we wound our way back up the mountain and decided to have another tea party. we couldnt use fourth because of people, so we invaded first, the overlooked lobby. we set up blankets and pillows and the alpaca rug from the EBP. i strung the two boxes of christmas lights i had all over, making this wonderful glow. mark brought the guitar up and we sat and played music and talked and told stories and drank tea. one of the highlights being alex's replaying of his folk festival song. we talked until we started to fall asleep, then gathered up all the things and carried them back upstairs. it was a wonderful night. incredibly surreal. and the face of the bus driver is still vivid in my mind. the strange thing is that i never felt fear. just...the need to stop it. to get them out of the way. its sobering to think of how we almost got hit. but there was literally no fear. the only thing that went through my head was to get my friends out of the way. no adrenaline rush, just sudden action. the thunder storm continued to growl until we wandered back to our rooms, raining and lightning outside the windows with the warm christmas lights and soothing guitar. a surreal night to say the least.

thank you, Lord, for your protection and blessing.