Unintentional Love

Absent-mindedly he strolls by,
his hand grazes the baby in the womb,
a silent lullaby.
A symbol of hope,
a soft grope.
This father's love,
danger and fear it is innocent of.


This poem I wrote after seeing a soon-to-be father touch his girlfriend's tummy and did it so effortlessly. I loved just ruminating over the unintentional act of, despite the fact that the couple is biracial and without even a college degree, this man notifying both his girlfriend and child that he was present, that all of their fear could cease. It may seem like over-analyzation (something I do well) but the moment was so unique I had to note it.

Up, Up and Away, Man, I'll Come Down in a Couple of Days http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-_IOeBgwrI

    For whatever reason, disabling Jenny's independence is practiced by everyone so well it must be on every street corner the way Missing Dog! posters are. After my last exam, (might I add: the most dreaded) I have a break of five days. I decided it best not to sit around Raleigh for those days, just reading and resigned from the social scene then complaining about it later as I knew I would. So I called my grandmother and decided to make flight reservations for a four day trip to Glastonbury, CT. My grandparents have lived here for fifty some years and love when we come visit, thus leading me to this moment in time.

   I sit comfortably on a bed in a room that looks like it was designed by a decorator with a fetish for awkward shots of my mother's family and crappy African accessories. Oh, and since when was there a Rule of Design that you can't employ anything from the 21st century in decorating? 

    Anyway, let's examine how everyone has managed to dangle my independence over my head today. After my exam, I was forced to sit patiently, not waiting for anyone at all to finish their exam, considering I was second to last. (Remind me what I was waiting for again?) Then, my mother woke me up from my nap (the best part of my day) saying I needed to pack. Hello, I'm always more prepared than you...why don't you go get ready instead of nagging me? After those aggravating tidbits, it only sloped downward. At the airport, I was forced ("by law") to have my dad accompany me through security and down to the gate where I met a blonde-haired woman in a navy skirt and matching blazer who might as well have asked if I wanted to hold her hand while she held my sippy cup. I got handed on just as track-stars hand off their batons. 

    Following Airplane Barbie was the flight attendant. She placed me promptly on aisle 1, where no one else was seated so I could be the first person that came into vision when she wanted to go anywhere on the plane. Might I add that she only checked up on me/ told me (once again, "by law") everything that is common knowledge about riding a plane every spare second she had. Oh, really, I thought the seat belt was decoration and if the air mask drops I was supposed to play with it like cats play with yarn. The flight attendant looked like Mother Teresa compared to this next woman though. Measuring at 4'11 (with heels), she was a lot of angry for a little woman ("I have four other flights to be watching! I can't find your luggage - that's your job!"). I'd be the responsible person I am if I didn't have to be accompanied by an airport worker at all times...but thanks for the suggestion (not like it's the first time I'd thought of it either). A series more of discontented Delta servicemen/women passed me along. I was the secret that is told from one person to the next in the game of Telephone, each time being viewed and treated differently than the last person I had been with.

    The train of airport employees who handled me ended with a woman who eased the stress of the trip. She didn't seem particularly real, just saying "aww" after things I said, but at least she tried. Whether she was genuine or not, I'm not sure, but I'm sure she tried to be nice and relate to me. After minutes of sitting with her, talking to a woman I'll probably never see again, my grandfather appeared and I was relieved.....kind of. Within the first evening of being here, limitations are already set. 1) No eyebrow plucking. 2) We only wash our faces with soap and since we didn't pay for you to have checked luggage (thus nothing over 3oz that's liquid, no face wash), you have to use the hand soap or nothing. 3) You can only use your towel. 4)The heat does not exceed 50 on the second floor (where I am stationed) because we don't heat it. 5) Lastly, you're inclined to go wherever I go (oh, that makes perfect sense since I'm 9 years old and in the stage where I break everything and hide it under the coffee table).

    Though I may sound like I am harboring too much angst, it's probably cause I am. I was going to give you a reason but my fingers started typing that before I could stop them. I'll admit that I'm angry. I may only be 14, but then again I am 14. I need some freedom. I would have much more liked to take a train to visit my aunt, but that wasn't suitable in my mom's opinion. I would have liked to take a plane to Egypt and hitch-hike my way through another continent (which I recognize as totally unrealistic, but yet a pipe dream I grasp for dear life). 

    Instead, I am trapped in a 14 year old's life and body, where my feet don't quite fit these shoes and my arms are popping out of my jacket limbs. I am contained in a figure that has zits and stretch-marks because it's not done growing. And there's no way out of this frame. So I'm left to fade into nothing, my independence and all else robbed from right under my nose. I'm left to hide within this carcass, to be deadened down to the roots. 

Hope in the Hard Times

Sometimes, there is no half, it's just empty.

The weight of the world is not mine to carry.

The measure of a person comes nothing from how large or small of a number is on the tape measure.

Cause jewelry boxes are a girl's only lifelong friend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NARp7lhIOQg&ob=av2em

When even the least of us doesn't know who or what to love.

When I wish there was a power button for loving you.

When it's just so close, but yet, too far.

When there's something inexplicable, so unknown and magical at once, just beyond reach.

When something always stands against us.

The I in American http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDmPcSWE0WU&ob=av2nl

    Sitting comfortably in my room, facebooking, I saw this video was posted by one of my friends. Honestly, it looked like a crappy, low-budget, waste-of-my time Youtube video that I typically would overlook. Example A of assumptions and impatience. But for whatever reason, I clicked play and watched the video, actually shocked at how nicely edited the video was, definitely defying the ignorant first impression I'd had. Throughout this time of facebooking before the video, I had been chatting with a friend on facebook and they had stopped responding around when the video began. And though I found the video moving, I continued to selfishly wonder (not even fully giving four minutes of my 24 hour day to think about someone else on this planet other than my friend, which doesn't count) where they were and why they weren't responding.
    I tapped my keys and attempted at a lame conversation maker, "whats up?" to see if they were ignoring me or what. Briskly slamming against the keyboard, I entered the text into the chat and and resumed the video, realizing I wasn't even really paying attention. Instead, my eyes existed on the chat box, anxiously flipping the questions in my mind where are they? why aren't they responding? over and over again like you pancakes that refuse to cook all the way through. The video played, really without an audience, just like background music at parties when everyone is too busy laughing and grabbing handfuls of chex mix.
    After recognizing how egocentric I wasn't just being, but normally am, I wanted to take the high-heeled boot lying next to me and wallop myself in the head with it. I couldn't even give .0002986111.... th of my day to people in other countries who may not even have two dimes to rub together. I couldn't even look at the faces of the children and the women because otherwise I might have felt a pinch guilty. I couldn't even because I have used I sixteen times in this blog already. I couldn't even because I chose, consciously, to be the epitome of a selfish American.

I'll See You Soon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsz-EeNZBkI&NR=1

The mountains peeking through the trees in my aunt and uncle's backyard is my favorite sight in all of the world. Mountains are the best, especially the ones in Brightwood, Virginia, but sometimes, we don't always get the luxury mountains provide. Plateaus are what we get served, instead. Similar to mystery meat instead of the angus thick-burger. We don't receive simply constructed, triangular shapes of Christmas trees and birthday hats, or simply put, mountains. Occasionally, we get plateaus, a trapezoid with curved legs, as if trapezoids aren't complicated enough.
Miley Cyrus was wrong, it's the climb, but the view isn't great, because once you reach the top, you have to amble to the other edge to see it. Plateaus require you to endure struggles, persevere despite everything telling you to give in, but then once you get to the top, there is no easy hike down. Instead, a walk of shame lies ahead. Lost is your dad's life, your mother's employment, you and your sister's relationship, your few Hopes and you are to meander across this area with the anxieties that were supposed to be gone once you reached the top. You've buckled up to everything thrown at you, become stronger and awaited looking down on all you overcame. The view is always great. But not on plateaus.
Life throws plateaus to the best of us and we don't see that they are until we reach the top. I pull myself across the threshold to the top, finally leaving behind all the pain, and a plane lies in front of me. I have to keep going, sauntering the distance of plateau's top, the burdens continuously weighing down harder and harder on my petite shoulders. When the worst is upon me, I have to wear it for the duration of my walk, like a Vote For Pedro! t-shirt.
That's why plateaus suck. There is no climax, no real success. The top is reached but it's like getting first place in the second heat: meager and unimportant. The climb is everlasting, the meandering taking more time than the hike itself. Mountains though, offer more, a reward at the apex, one well-deserved and significant. Mountains are the Blue Ribbon at the State Championship, in the first heat. But bye-bye mountains, I'm stuck on a plateau now, and I hope to see you and that ribbon real soon.

Dimed/ Desolation : Two pieces of poetry

Why, Daddy, why must you speed?
A slow drive is all I need.
After all, it don't cost a dime. But of course, I'm not worth your time.


"Don't bother me now,"
prompted me to make a vow:
once I'm grown and on my own, 
I'm never returning to this desolated zone.