Love God, Love People and Love Yourself.

As much as I would love to take the day to pursue the corners of my mind for a poem or short story I have stored, I just don't have the creative inspiration. I still feel the need to write up a little something about what has been distracting me from rambling on about boys, schoolwork, roommates and the like. Hold on to your hats! I think about more than that.

I attempted posting a video of myself, but it turned out wacky. Basically, I am still in college, still having fun and still "discovering who I am". I just thought that "finding yourself" was a cliche piece of going to college, but lately I have been able to relate to it more than ever. The only words I can use to describe what I am currently "discovering" is: spiritual turmoil. What do I believe? More naggingly: Why do I believe it?

Things I know for certain? Love God, Love People and Love Yourself. The second and third portion of that sentence is easy, just takes practice. The first part has some strings attached. I am trying to figure out the best way to Love God. I have alway been taught that Jesus is the only way to God, because the Bible says so. But why do I believe the Bible? Because I have been told it is the Truth. All these things I believe because I have been told to believe them.

I don't question God because I can't accept that such a beautiful world just existed, not created for us. That the inner workings of human beings is just science. I believe there is more substance to human life than DNA and barbaric survival. That a soul, love, sincerity, beauty, hope, poetry and peace cannot be manufactured. I believe in the supernatural love of a God. Because it feels true to my heart and I don't want to believe anything different.

I want nothing more than to follow Jesus to God whole heartedly. But I am not going to blindly follow just because I always have. I am not going to just because I am scared of going to hell, losing friends and changing my thinking. Jesus offers hope and forgiveness that I haven't seen anywhere else and I want to genuinely believe in it. Which I think starts with questioning it. Questioning if this Man was who He said He was, the Son of God. Is he the ONLY way to God's Kingdom? If I choose to believe in Jesus and the promise He offers, do I have to accept all of what the Bible says?

Love you neighbors. Don't steal, cheat, lie, or murder. Respect your parents. Nothing in the 10 Commandments teaches me about doing wrong. But many of the things the Church teaches me about what the Bible says, doesn't line up with how I feel. That women should submit to their husbands. That being homosexual is a sin. That women can't be powerful and aggressive but sit back and be should be soft spoken and subservient. Am I allowed to throw out those teachings and not throw out Jesus? If it's an all or none approach-- do I want to be part of a religion like that? Do I have to accept the Christian church if I want to follow Jesus?

I am stuck in this grey area of my spirituality, trying to dig myself out. As I write and write about all the questions I have, I realize there is no answer. It is faith. Faith is believing in something you cannot prove. Can you force faith? I know I want faith, but I don't know if I can make myself have it. Or should it just be? If you know me, you know how I can worry about something 'til the well runs dry. The case of my eternal life isn't a different story. But my sister, Lacy, gave me peace of mind: I don't have to choose. Spirituality shouldn't be stagnant, but you should be ever growing and should be ever questioning and ever changing. The key is be ok with not knowing all the answers.

So my blog is about to end. With no conclusions made. Left only with questions that I hope one day to answer. Or the hope to one day have peace with them being unanswered.

Fast forward to "2:58" if you are impatient. I recommend watching all ten minutes of it. This guy is amazing, I would know, online Slam poetry is what keeps me constantly distracted from more productive things.

Daddy Issues

She falls into arms that might make her bruise,
who don’t cherish her love and her heart they misuse.

Dad must have run out before she could walk,
Beat mom to a pulp or maybe he
just never showed up.
His actions must have somehow doomed her a “slut”.

You can pick her out by her shirt much too low
You’d be the third guys this week, as far as you know.
You draw a label on her forehead
and try your best to ask her to bed.
She would be so easy to use,
Target: The One With “Daddy Issues. “

You look at me like the way this shirt molds my chest,
and my jeans hold my hips
makes me compatible with the sheets on your bed.
I bat my eyes and listen to your lies
because you’re cute and I’m new to this room.
And for a while I am a prize to be won or a gift to be received.
You drink me in saying something like I’m water that you need.

But let’s stop right there before you’re confused
This sweet naïve nineteen-year-old
Ain’t retaining any “daddy issues”

My dad was strong and he knew how to love
He knew what was important and knew how to have fun.
My dad showed me how a man should treat a woman
Because he knew chumps like you and my faith you could ruin.

I may keep eye contact a moment too long
And sometimes do things that some say to be wrong.
The truth is, I’m smarter than that.
Much smarter than you boy, in fact.

I’ll let you tell me I’m pretty
And the amazing girlfriend you think I would be.
But my dear, I know your intentions
Oh and did I mention…

He taught me to be better,
And the only daddy issue that may be
is that from six feet under,
he can’t keep stupid college boys away from me.

A Sad Short Story

Disclaimer: To give you some background, I wrote this about my friend from high school who threw away everything good she ever had... she let her life simmer down into just a sad short story.

She rolled up a piece of temporary happiness and inhaled smoke from the ember tip. Her eyes eased closed as she coughed and exhaled all her aspirations for life. Flicking the ashes to start the fire that burned her history and calculus books. Warming her hands by the flame her eyes glaze toward the sky, fixating on a flickering star, dreaming of being twenty-one. A rusty, worn lawn chair on her front yard, feet kicked up, she was floating. Another failed bonfire faded into a memory and the rejection from her grounded friends was currently forgotten. Assurance from her temporary acquaintances, that feel like best friends, make her chair become a spaceship, soon soaring among the stars.

The moon loved her and the big dipper sang her to sleep. Orion’s belt held her close and told her she was beautiful. She lost thirty pounds and was the most charming when she danced along the Milky Way. All the asteroids laughed at her jokes and the space listened for hours to her secrets.

The sun came up and her stomach growled. The embers were gone and all smoke exhaled. She woke up to half burned books and misplaced homework. She found the thirty pounds she lost the night before and the added weight of her disapproving friends. All that was left were the people who would share her secrets with the world and the not so funny things that she laughed so hard at last night.

It doesn’t feel right; she would rather dance among the stars, and why not? Her weak heart hides her in the world in which she doesn’t have to pretend to succeed, a world that unquestionably loves her... but a temporary world.

What It Means To Be Missing

It’s not a passing thought or a once a month affair
It’s when you are making dinner or brushing your hair
Or the night you are going to the prom
Or the afternoon while mowing the lawn
It’s the hours spent looking for their face
And realize it’s no longer there
It’s when a casserole can make you cry
And you can’t exactly say why
It’s the looking at pictures and talking to the wind
It’s them never coming back again.
Not when you will see them in a week, maybe a month or two
Not a phone call away or simply finding something else to do
It’s the phone that keeps on ringing and living in the past
It’s no new stories and ones told too fast.

Missing you is not just a phase to go through
It’s living in memories while trying to make some new.

A mind of it's own

A bit of drool escapes my lips, as it only does when I fall asleep in public. I’ve always hated libraries, but in college, it’s “the place to be” during exam week. So I pay the consequences of doing what’s cool, with my head resting on my keyboard…

CAPS LOCK is the drill sergeant, CONSTANTLY YELLING AT THE KEYS TO FIND THEIR PLACE ON THE WORD DOCUMENT. “SADIE NEEDS THIS 8 PAGE PAPER DONE TONIGHT YOU SISSY BOYS!” Then from Q to P and A to L and Z to M, the letters scurry to find their place. Until the bully from the corner, Delete, comes to do away with all their hard work.
From the far corners Esc and Eject are doing their best to run away. The commas, apostrophes, quotations and periods are severely depressed, for the youth has abandoned them and taken the Shifty side. BeC@UsE w3 aLl Kn0w G!rL$ wH0 tYp3 l!k3 Th!s. The mouse swivels on over to my Facebook page, trying to defriend them, but Return is too easy to reaccept their request. The anti-social space bar is pushing away consonants and vowels while the arrow keys assist in bringing them together. The ? and ! are fighting and cussing each other out, trying to finish the %#$@!*& paper before I wake.
The tíldas añd accents are misünderstood while the : and ; are feeling misused. {braces} + [brackets] = are hoping for calculus equations because (parenthesis) hold all the secrets in language. F12 decides to take control, before things get out of hand and the rest of the library notices the life in the keyboard. The volume rises and the master opens her eyes…

Wiping the drool from my keyboard, I pray to research paper fairies that this paper would write itself. If only the keyboard had a mind of it’s own and I could get back to wasting time on Facebook.

Fuel

I have been avoiding publishing certain works of mine, because I have matured past the stage of writing about puppies and rainbows. Nervous because most of the people reading are my family, and I am still probably frozen in their mind to the 8 year old with braces. But recently I have gotten into watching Slam poetry online, basically obsessed, and I realize that if I don't share what I write, than I am hiding a piece of me. Honestly, that isn't fair to you or to me. So now, uncensored, I will post what I write, because it is what I feel and experience. I'm going to be brave and vulnerable. After all, this is my blog, I am nineteen and experiencing college, life is more than puppies and rainbows now. Not that it's all, or even mostly, bad... but it gives you fuel.

I lay there with your arms around my body

Breathing in the memory that I’m prepared to store

For the nights ahead that I already know you won’t call.

Telling myself, “Hey, It’s okay, At least you didn’t go all the way.”

I shave off and dissect the previous encounter in my mind.

Keeping the part where you told me I was beautiful.

Keeping the part where you looked me straight in my eyes,

Where you told me about your family

Where you made me feel special,

Where you called me baby.

Gathering those pieces in the space next to me,

so there is something to weigh down by bed;

Something to warm my covers,

something to hold me close,

something to back up all my lonely teenage clichés.

But the rest of my night is lying next to me too,

Weighing down the mattress with temptation,

Regrets,

Broken ideals,

With disrespect,

Hickies

And lips to be sealed

Secrets to be kept

And expectations to fulfill.

At dawn I'll shuffle around to find my bra and self-respect.

I’ll stuff the good memories in last night’s jeans pocket

And the bad ones will stick to the bottom of my shoe.

Follow me back to my own single mattress

And witness the lies I’ll tell my friends

And the lies I’ll tell myself.

Pretending that next time I won’t settle for temporary.

Next time I’ll stay true to the vows I have professed.

Maybe that next time there won’t even be a next time.

But I know in the fumbled excuses and make up covered tears, pain will echo in my voice no matter the tune I sing.

Tonight I’ll go to bed, with the story I have created. The arms of false hope will rock me to sleep and night by night it will let me become a little more jaded.

Because breaking your own heart is safer than letting a stranger

and I am an expert

at avoiding danger.