2am

When the world falls alseep, why am I still sitting here expecting confetti to burst up over my computer screen? Why do I check my silent cell phone? If I've been caught up in a tornado all night, is this just me suffering from the shock of the end of the wind? Or maybe it's just pure insomnia, or abuse of caffiene. Nevertheless, here I sit, watching night breathe on. Love songs play from YouTube, with no meaning other than the soft tune they put into the room.

As I stare at green digital numbers, I can feel time dripping down on me, and I start to feel layers disappear. Tonight is not just tonight - it's every night I've been awake in the middle of the morning, wondering if I'm about to fall out, or if I'll see the sunrise this time. Everytime I've been worried, or blissful, overly contemplative or scared. Any time I have held this vigil, 2am on Fort Washington Avenue. I start to realize I'm staring at the same pencil-smudged plaster and paint I stared at years ago, and signed my name and pledges of love. Written like prisioners' wall carvings to prove that I was once there, in a different form. Of all the things that have changed, I still find myself in the same room, awake, absorbing night's gravity.

And then when the sunrises the purity of the dawn will shine off of urban windows and in faint ways around red and brown bricks. And I will feel every morning I've ever lived, the cold ones and the warm ones. I will feel the simultanious dread and wonder that I'm alive again and there is another day to live where there will be life on earth. Dawn is the best time to determine your character, as light baptizes you. There's a certain signifigance of seeing the first moments of morning - there's a reason you're catching that moment; it doesn't tend to be coincidental, and even if you think so, I suggest you think twice.

Fourteen

And no joke, I was sitting there with my calendar open, years flashing by in my head. With my backpack open on my lap, squished into the corner seat of the subway, I opened the vinyl cover of the set of papers that mapped out a year of my middle school life. Staring at the pages, I flipped through, month to month, looking, as I realized that soon it would be June, and another summer, another transition, and half of us would already be fourteen.

Remember back when we were all in fifth grade and turning eleven was a big deal? When being fourteen was one of those far off places of such maturity? Being all grown up and sophisticated with big issues and life that kept going in a dramatic line of constant excitement. Eleven was big enough for us, and we owned every bit of knowledge above those who were still stuck in fourth grade. Slowly we would creep up to be teenagers, but thirteen didn't count 'cause you would still be in middle school, and fourteen would be a teenager. While we could barely feel it, those mythological times were dawning upon us with every Friday afternoon, until we filled those silhouettes.

Soon we would be celebrating sweet sixteens and normals sixteens, and we would feel like kids, but be in the shoes of adults. If we can go from being 10 to 14 without too much changing beyond a bra and a few inches, then how long does it take for us to be eighteen? We would be standing together, remembering when we were little kids. Hopefully.

The best part is, I had these deep revelations about ten years flying by, just by riding home with my planner open.

Repeated

I was just trying to write how I felt in my journal, in normal paragraph form. Then this slipped out. (this is from a few weeks ago)

_________________________________________________

And why does my life feel like the same thing

Repeated year to year

The only thing changing is the characters

But the lessons are the same

Cause I have the same feelings

And I never learn.

I look back at old journals

That tell of a time

So long before ours

Before simplicity was devoured

And while the setting was so vastly different -

Essentially

It was the same.

So what am I doing here but walking in circles

Scratching with pencils and searching for words

To find a phrase and complete a poem

So I can turn the page

Think about -

And go on.

Future

Pain is a barrier

preventing motion towards your future.

Happiness stimulates

progress towards the future.

Memories exist

to allow the future to be the future

and not a repetition of the past.

Drown

There are those things in your mind that sometimes you would prefer to be a guest, and not a resident. There are some thoughts, some memories that are better seen every once and a while, and then can be shoved out the door. Or maybe they can just be exiled forever to live in some remote corner of the intellectual universe where they don't have to be leeches to my mind. Some things are just not meant to dwell here in my head, because they are too powerful to allow the rest of my brain operate in the way in which it needs to. So this is about those thoughts.
If I don't get rid of them, I'll never write again. I'll never read another story that doesn't trail off into some daydream, I'll never live a day without the fun being interrupted by a random daily event that triggers a flashback. And in the last two weeks, I've learned to stop these flashbacks, let them play and then shake myself out of it before I fall too deep. Before people realize exactly what I'm doing and it's a bad thing. Living off of memories is sick. I don't live off of them either; the plague me. I want to live life where I can fall asleep every night without random disturbances, where Jamba Juice cups, wet gravel, snow and car alarms, are not haunted by the same idea forever. I will drown these memories forever. I will write them down, every detail that my mind can imagine, down to the very temperature, slightest brush of air, every immaculate movement. All the tiny memories that rule my life, will all be written down on papers, until there are no more left. Then I will drown them. Whichever body of water I can, even if it's a street puddle, even if it's the bathroom sink. I will soak these memories into the water and watch the ink and paper crumble, and then I will be free. If they are all said and all gone, then like getting rid of the lip gloss that tasted so good, all evidence of the story will be gone and liberation will have come.

Back

I am going to close my eyes right now. And the tears are going to come streaming down my cheeks, down my neck and the two rivers will meet at my spine. I am going to take a deep breath, and it will take me a full 65 seconds to slowly let it out. I am going to open my mouth, and wait for words to come. But they never will. I will stare at a computer screen and listen to the sound of a clicking keyboard, but I will still not understand exactly what is coming out from my fingertips. I feel my life rewinding, I feel like I'm crawling back into prehistory. I've already zipped through November, now I'm living October. October was long and hard compared to December. It was full of constant doubt and playing every card carefully... yet I'm still confused what the difference between October and December was... on that spectrum. Did I not think the same thoughts, only by December they were reality? I feel as distant from you as my birthday. September. August. August was like a stab in the chest followed by hiding in a hole. July, July ends it. My memory ends in July, my time travel is limited to July. Because so many things were a myth in July, so many people were different, including myself. There was so much left to figure, so much innosence. No, we can't go back THAT far. But maybe tonight we'll understand, because we will have lost the past 4 months. Maybe, but we can only hope. It seems I can't understand anything being thrown at me these days.