Brick by Brick

It's not so easy to finish things just like that.  You have to go one step at a time before reaching your goal, which is something that people forget.  It's a bad thing to forget.  If we forget that we can't do things all at once or on the first try, we'll give up on the things we want to do.  Well, it's something I've done anyway, and I can't be alone.

I asked over and over for lessons.  Finally my mom signed me up.  The first brick.  I went every week, getting more and more bricks to build the stairs up to get better and better.  My teacher moved to a different state.  The brick stairs to piano expertise came crumbling down. 

I'm trying to learn piano again, but it's harder to build with real bricks than the Lego bricks that the childhood me was able to use.

If only

There was a time when we were good friends.  Best of friends in fact.  You were the one I would see first in a crowd.  The connection felt amazing.  People said you were tough and unable to connect, but I guess they couldn't see the heart that was always on your sleeve.  Your skin wasn't perfect, your voice was too low, your laugh borderline obnoxious, but it all added up to give me a feeling.

Not sure what this feeling is still.  It stood somewhere between talking to a family member who I haven't seen in months and hearing my soon to be favorite song for the first time.  Except it didn't take months, and it wasn't just the first time.  Over and over you captivated my mind and I enjoyed every second, even when those seconds detracted from my time with my eyes shut at night.

I remember your hands and the way they were in the fall.  When they were cold and clingy, and refused to lay alone.  When they would stroke through my hair and touch my face at any chance they got.  When they would pull on my shirt ever so slighty during a hug, as though I was someone who you wanted to stay with longer.  They could get into my phone because I didn't mind you knowing the most important day in my life.

I remember your cheeks in the street lights.  Mainly because we would go on walks in the cold, and they became the most beautiful shade of red.  I never told you I didn't like walks that much, but they were something you enjoyed, and watching that gave me that feeling of almost being at that concert we've waited so long to see.  I wish I had known what it was like to be with you during the summer.

I realized that you were the one I cared for the most.

If only I had the kind of bravery you have.  The ability to not give a damn what our parents said.  To casually intertwine fingers down the hallway or say "I love You" in the least demanding way.  To tell me my flaws and know that I wouldn't be offended since I knew that you didn't hate them.  To be willing to skip church to help me in my worst times, even if it meant your parents getting angry.  The bravery to tell me that you would share names with someone famous if you had my last name.

I'm sorry that I said that I didn't love you anymore because that was a lie.  I still love you like I love the weather right after the rain stops.  I just wasn't brave enough to say I cared so much that I couldn't drag you down with me.  We're still friends, but I've made a wall that is now unbreakable, even though this time it's me who wants to tear it down instead of you.

Things that bother me:

• Reckless Drivers
• People constantly texting on a date
• That I can't move out yet
• Having no motivation anymore
• Waking up and feeling like sleep never even happened
• Forgetting you have homework until you're already in bed
• That I'm not taken seriously
• That I can't get an iPhone 6 because money is a thing
• That I can't stand up for myself because when I did I was hit by someone I trusted
• I'm never as nice as I want to
• My mom
• My dad
• My brother
• That my aunt can't get married because of this conservative state
• How many times I try and fail
• No matter how much I try I don't like burgers much
• People who take promises lightly
• My nails going past my fingertips
• My inability to admit my true feelings
• That when my day is going well I go home only to feel worthless
• how America is land of the free but how that only applies to the straight white man
• That racism is still a thing
• That I have to type this on a phone
• How much I need to move out of this state doesn't compare to the money needed to do so 
• That I have no hope for anything because of all the times I've been let down
• The way that whenever I wear jeans my shoes untie themselves
• How I can get a 4.0 and somehow still displease my parents

This list could go on longer

And it bothers me that I can't tell myself to keep writing

Simply because I'm scared of someone knowing too much about me

Even when we're anonymous

Love is Fiction

Love is a construct.
It has no physical bearing in what we call "the real world"
there is no way to touch it
yet the only way to know love is by feeling it.

Love and I
we don't get along so easily.
We often bicker about who is right
and who I care to share it all with.
My ups and downs
my problems
my habits that I want to get rid
and the ones that I wish I hadn't.



My experience with relationships
are limited to two
and both of which ended of my own accord
so what do I know about love?

Love isn't exclusive to one.
Love can be in many things.
I love my friends
my family (most of the time)
my hobbies
the scent of rain
someone calling me by name
and singing at the top of my lungs in the car.

I love being able to lay down
with no stress bearing down on me.
Listening to a new favorite song for the first time
or watching my friends and seeing what it is
that they are passionate about.

Never before did I feel love
but I know that's different now.

Everyone has their reasons
and excuses and their
corny, cheesy love notes;
but I have solid proof.

I know that I understand love
because now I'm actually happy
seeing the face in the mirror.
 

LOLs and BRBs

I can't quite wrap my head around this whole "Stop using technology thing"
because that's stupid.

I think I speak for us all when I say that the Airplane mode rule in seminary
is probably the worst thing ever.

What if my parents call?!? What if my friend is having a break down?!  I NEED to know those things.

I'm sick of people telling me I'm on the computer too much.  Yes, I'm on the computer a lot.  Yes, I'm on my phone a lot.  Why?  Because I get bored.  Who doesn't?  I'm sorry, but playing a game on my phone is completely acceptable on the bus, especially when none of you want to talk to me.

"Why not just talk to them face to face?" Maybe because it's my friend who is grounded.  Maybe it's my friend who is sick.  Maybe it's my friend who lives down in Arizona.  You don't know who I'm talking to.  I'm not blowing anyone off.

Basically I'm venting.

I'm pissed that I'm told technology is bad
and that all that comes from it is
violence, sacrilegious humor and porn
or that I'm wasting away.

There is a point to where technology is bad
but what I'm really getting at is this.

Stop telling me to not use technology
it's required in today's world.
Tell us to use it properly.

Technology is GOOD.  I don't understand where this went wrong.
Some people used it bad and thus everyone does.
Some muslims are terrorists and thus be scared of muslims.
Some gays are flamboyant and thus they all are.

I guess this applies to more than technology.



And I guess I'm only venting because of grumpy old men at church
but I guess that works for blogs right?

Let's move out (of this state of mind)

How is life out there?
All of you fulfilling everything
while I struggle to know what everything is
and what it's all here for.

Humanity is a struggle,
a push and pull
because it changes so much
as time ticks on.

At one time slavery was considered humane
and at another striking a child
with a ruler for being out of place.

Technology was used for saving time
and now so much of it is wasting time.

But is wasting time really that bad?

Everyone has so many hours
there has to be time for fun.
Let's sit around and talk
about 

• life
• religion
• equality
• family troubles
• bad grades
• and other stupid things

but never really do much else.
Let's just talk and goof around
laugh and hurt and cry out loud.

Let's go see your favorite band
and maybe flip a bird at your old man
for a stupid fight that does nothing
because they'll love you anyway.

Let's go do mundane jobs
that have no value to us
because money is required
before we can do what we truly want.

Let's escape and run
to a state of mind
where no one can tell us
"your generation is lazy
and nature impaired"

Let's waste time
because we have so much
and that's fine
we have years to decide
what our societal contribution
will eventually be.

Because if we didn't waste time
if we didn't make a mistake
if we didn't screw something up
and yell and scream at people
and regret all of it later

then
how can we really say we're human?

You really want to know what it is to be human?


then
Start wasting time, and find out who you are
because human isn't a definition
but a state of mind that many of us
have yet to acknowledge and explore.



*Here's another song but I'm telling you now
it's explicit.... I couldn't find a clean version*

Color/Colour

The winters that didn't withhold color in snow,
or drown out my happiness in feeling of cold.
The time when I would look forward to school,
and play with my friends with absolutely no rules.
The palm trees that year-round lined the streets,
and the lines in the summer air from radiated heat.
When I could speak my mind and not feel mocked or alone,
be who I was with no feeling of being looked down upon.
I want the times to come back when I was young,
before I had decided that people were stupid and dumb.
When I could have a meaningful conversation with my mother,
without feeling like I've become some kind of monster.
I want to go back to when people told me to continue my drawing,
rather than pointing and laughing and constantly mocking.

The time that I speak isn't just a few years ago,
because my crayons have been laughed at
since this town became my "home"