BC13's blog

Written In The Stars

“There had been rumors from the North for months. None of us believed it, until one night we started killing our children too.”

Load of garbage. Ridiculous rumors. Lies. Terrorists. Anyone but our own people. Anyone but us. Read more »

I just need to get some thoughts out of my head onto paper, so this is not polished...at all...

Tonight was the last night. 

Today was the last day.

I'm going back tomorrow to talk to to the incoming 7th graders

-lucky ducks-

but today was the last  day I spent as a student at Essex Middle School.

I think, now, after the speeches from our principal and former EMS students, 

now seniors at the High School,

I'm a bit more ready for the plunge into the big world.

According to the speakers, 

it isn't so much as a plunge as 

a very slow wade into the water.

Change will come

slowly, quickly, however long it takes.

Some change is big and easy,

other  kinds of change is subtle and harder. 

All I know is that one day

I won't care for the people I do now

and one day, I'll be someone better than I am today.

I will meet new people and face new challenges.

I pray--not just hope, pray, which I do not do--that I will remember the teachers I had in middle school.

Because they were god-damn amazing. 

I pray--and hope--that I will remember the lessons they taught me 

and that trying is better than not trying at all

and that your failure could be someone else's success.

It isn't real,

tonight.

It wasn't real,

today.

I was so sure it was real.

Maybe I will wake up tomorrow and find it was all a dream. Read more »

I just totally, completely,

shamefully,

forgot the lyrics to the National Anthem.

Not only did I forget the words

my voice cracked on a high note.

I just messed up singing the flippin' National Anthem

at a flippin' Memorial Day Assembly

in front of all the people who thought I'd be great

Including my cocky, arrogant self. 

I swear,

at home, I sang it perfectly 

with emotion and flair

with all of the right words.

The problem is,

under the pressure I usually thrive on,

I broke.

Totally and completely.

I'm sure, if The President himself had heard me 

screw up his beautiful National Anthem

he'd kick me out of the country.

I just totally, flipping messed up,

in front of my whole entire school

at an important event

where I should have been perfect.

My gym teachers, my Design and Tech Ed teacher,

my math teacher,

who are all too aware I have no talent in their classes

at least expected me to be able to do THIS right.

So did I.

I just totally, completely

shamefully,

forgot the lyrics to the National Anthem

and I still have to go to school tomorrow. 

One cup of coffee

and a pen

and maybe a piece of paper

to write on

That's all he needs.

Just a bottle of whiskey 

and a pen

and a piece of paper 

to drink away the misery

and write her out of his brain

I wish to be an only child!

I wish to make no mistakes, ever.

I wish to undo my last two wishes.

Nightmares in Her Head

If I could get some feed back from anyone patient enough to read this, that'd be great. I'm writing this for class and I'm too impatient to get feedback from fellow classmates. Thanks! Read more »

It keeps disappearing

every time I try

to save it

so one day I'll be able

to go back and remember 

what it was like to be

an infuriating 14

Something happens

that makes these stupid posts go,

"Good-bye!"

and zip away like they were nothing

Like what I had to say was nothing

like I was nothing.

Like maybe,

nobody cared. 

Not this stupid computer

or this stupid, soap opera of a middle school 

that I live in.

Like even though I really, really wanted that poem to post

the universe is testing me

to see if I'll do it again

or if I'm too lazy to remember it all.

I think 

I can't remember

and don't care enough

to say something

no one will read.

(Which, of course, is pathetic and would've been unthinkable a few years ago, when all I wanted to do was write

just for the pleasure of it. )

"I'll take a paint bucket

and a ladder a few miles high

so I can take climb up to the heavens

and paint the world

just the way I want it.

Lots of colors please.

Red and blue

White and gray

Green. Lots of green.

Lots of shades

so people know exactly what I'm saying.

There's really nothing like painting the world, is there?"

"Umm...right. You said your name was..?"

"Like I said, just one bucket and lots of paint and...what am I missing? Oh! A paintbrush. A large one please."

"Coming right up Miss...?"

"Call me Angel."

My dear child,

your imagination is brilliant

I wish I could imagine a world like yours.

Sweetheart,

please. Your imagination is a gift. 

The ability to create such a world,

such a character in your head is extraordinary.

What if you had your imagination?

Carried it around with you under your curls

hidden deep in the pockets 

of your favorite jeans you wear only on weekends.

What if you had such a world

in your mind

all the time,

like I do?

Would you waste your life away 

getting lost in daydreams 

that can never be true?

What kind of world would you create

if you could?

Would it be anything like mine?

Filled with love and everything my way all the time?

Violence, only when you are the one doing the butt-kicking?

Would your world have demons you can destroy 

and you with nine lives?

I suppose it is better to have demons you can destroy 

than to have demons you can not.

But when would you know

 they are really truly gone?

How would you know your imagination

was not your greatest weakness,

your proudest flaw?

If you could live in my world

just for a day

I think you'd be surprised

and in no hurry

to come back.

I was breathing. My heart was pumping wildly in my chest, like I had just awoken from a nightmare. Maybe I had. Maybe...all that never happened. 

But I knew it had. I could feel it, hear it in the whispers that hung in the still, dusty air. Whispers of the dead. Scandalized, jealous, worried whispers of the ones who died, young and old alike. Feel it in the way the air cloaked me like a heavy blanket. I could breathe it in and taste it, but it was air, and I was breathing, and I wasn't used to that. 

My bed was still here. I was lying on it, like it was mine, but the sheets and blankets weren't mine, and the bookshelves were not mine either. My dresser had been replaced by a desk. My curtains were in a pile on the floor. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, flooding the entire room. The closet door was half open, something no one would have dared to do while I lived here. I sat up. My muscles were sore. I flexed my fingers; they were stiff. I wondered if I was some kind of zombie. The mirror that used to hang on my wall was gone. All my paintings and framed artwork was gone. I swung my legs off the side of the bed and stood slowly, crossed the room slowly, the weight I was so unacumstomed to making my ankles ache. The desk called to me, it's vibrations at a pitch so high it seemed to sing. I pulled open the bottom drawer first.  Read more »

(She puts on fresh memories and fixes her hair: gets ready for the dance: he should be there)

Verse1

This is where we would have danced

right here on this floor

This is where we would have laughed

if I had had the nerve 

Chorus

 And we can go off about what if

and we can talk about what could've been

and we can dream about how

long things would have lasted

but that's all what if

Verse2

This is where we would have 

laughed until we cried

and this is where you would have kissed me

just underneath the starry sky

Oh if I had had the nerve

Chorus

 And we can go off about what if

and we can talk about what could've been

and we can dream about how

long things would have lasted

but that's all what if

Bridge

And this is where 

we would have cried

this is where we would have sang (out of key)

this is where I would have sang to you

about my heartbreak

and everything we would've had 

Outro

This is where we would have danced

right here on this floor

if I had had the nerve

oh if I had had the nerve

  Read more »

A Dream Inside A Dream Inside A Great Big Dream

Today I heard that you are never really touching anything.

Today I was told if I somehow became invisible, I would not exist.

I wanted to cry. 

We are so much more complex than that. I would still have my mind, wouldn't I, if my hand could not be seen?

Sometimes I wonder if this is all in my head. Sometimes I'm terrified this is all a dream.

I like to write stories about those common fears, but I would never believe them to be true. Read more »

I wear this grief like a heavy,

metal chain around my neck

It settles into my chest 

I wonder if it is making a home there

and if this is how I feel

I can not imagine

what it must feel like

for the people who were there.

Her mother was not there,

but she wishes she was

 there when her child died

(perhaps shot

probably shot)

for now she holds her in her mind 

as she used to hold her in her arms.

She did not know

that, "I love you"

was her last to her daughter

only 7 years old.

She did not know.

How was she supposed to know?

Wasn't there a law

some kind of magical, brillant law,

that says a child of seven

may not die?

There should not be expiration dates on children

but since there are

her mother thinks

she should have been warned.

Save her

but now there is nothing to do

but cry.

And grieve

and pray she is in Heaven.

She must wear a grief

I do not understand

around her neck

like a noose

that will not snap her neck

but blocks her air flow

and leaves her struggling 

and praying

she will meet her daughter in Heaven.

Today I heard that you are never really touching anything.

Today I was told if I somehow became invisible, I would not exist.

I wanted to cry. 

We are so much more complex than that. I would still have my mind, wouldn't I, if my hand could not be seen?

Sometimes I wonder if this is all in my head. Sometimes I'm terrified this is all a dream.

I like to write stories about those common fears, but I would never believe them to be true.

Only in my wildest nightmares do pigs fly

invisible people do not exist

 I am never really touching anything

and my dreams are dreams inside of another dream.

Only in science fiction novels.

and not the good ones. The garbage only true sci-fi fans like. 

 It's like a bad ending to a great book.

But by the end of the day, I realize

it doesn't matter.

Even if this is a dream

it's a damn good one.

And I'm in no hurry to wake up.

Did you hear me?

Did you hear me through time and space and fire and rain? Did you hear me when I cried silently for you?

Did you hear me?

Did you taste the new world

and decide you liked your old one better?

Sorry, it's taken.

Someone else has taken your place.

You can not return.

Did you smell the new smells 

and hear the new sounds,

and decide you were better off dead? 

Did you want to come back to me? 

Did you hear me? Did my calls bring you new waves of homesickness

and remind you of where you belong?

Of what could have been?

No, not what could have been. Not if you tried. 

I tried. I wanted to keep you. But sooner or later, they take you away,

or you decide to leave.

Leave to the new world.

Did it look fun? Clean? Smart?

Pretty, with its shining lights and

glimmering colors?

I'll bet you it isn't fun anymore.

Did you hear me?

Hear me call your name

 over darkness

and all your shimmering lights

did you hear me call you home?

I stood at the window, watching the red tail lights disappear into the gloom. The fog was rolling in. 

I opened the door once I knew he was gone, left the door open as I  stepped outside onto the porch. Just stood there in the darkness of the early morning, arms crossed against my chest, holding my heart in. My hair was still up in a ponytail. The road at the end of my driveway was deserted. No one to hear me if I screamed or cried or shouted to the fog. Not for miles. I could have done anything. Anything. God, I could have killed myse if I had wanted to. 

But instead, I took a step forward, in yesterdays jeans, a thin sweater on over a tank top, barefoot, off the porch into the dew covered grass. It was freezing, stinging my feet. But I kept going, right up to the sliver-infested fence that bordered my yard. I placed my hands on the top railing and swung one leg over, then the other, balancing on the thin wooden railing. I clutched the thin board with my hands on either side of my thighs, ignoring the shooting pain that raced through my hands. Rough wood rubbing against my hands, I held myself there, just like he told me to.

"So you're afraid of a rickety fence?" He had asked. "Here, I'll help you." And he had, lifting me right off my feet, placing me on the rail, holding my hands so they wouldn't touch it. I had leaned into him and laughed, freaking out a bit inside even though it was barely four feet off the ground. If I fell, it would hurt. Wouldn't kill me, but it would hurt.  Read more »

She was a dreamer.

A brown haired, hazel eyed dreamer. 

She ran alone.

She talked alone.

She walked beside many people

but somehow-somehow, she always managed to fall behind.

She walked wtih only one person

at a time

and only spoke to one person

at a time

she was a dreamer

a control freak 

a freak of human nature

too normal

too weird

to quiet

 too loud

not good enough

never good enough

then all of a sudden, too good for anyone.

She was a dreamer

and she ran alone.

Treat others the way you want to be treated. 

I wonder why we stray so far from that. I mean, we used to do that. Follow the golden rule. Now? Did we find other options, other choices?

I was mad, okay? I've told you a lot of things; "I don't like you, You stress me out, You bring out the worst in me..."

Have I told you you make me mad?

I was just mad. Mad you intruded my magical private world, mad you always had to know, what I was doing, what I thought on subjects I didn't care for. 

I was mad, okay? Mad you shattered my perfect vision of the world. That jerks only exist in movies.

I was mad. I was mad because you are not always a jerk.

I was mad because we fight. All the time. You seem to ruin all of my chances at getting the guy of my dreams. He moves on to my best friend. 

I was mad because you and I? We don't have anything in common. Except arguing. Yes, I used to love to argue too. But now? I'm older. I've grown up a bit. Arguing, it tires me out. I don't want to fight and debate, I want to talk. And not to you.

I've said it before, but never to you. You scare me. How you never let go. 2 years feels like a long time, and everyone else adores you. So why love the girl you can't have? 

Maybe if you moved on, I'd realize how great you are. Maybe if you moved on, I wouldn't, and we'd find other people, and remember each other as stupid middle school drama. Read more »

I have been living in a summer haze. I seem to have convinced myself I am not who I am and I do not go to school. 

A girl can dream, right?

Summer is like dreaming; a very vivid dream. You might go places or see people, try new things or just sit around in your room all day; either way once school starts back up again, or just before it does, you get the sense that summer has been here forever, yet you just started. At the end of a school year kids can remember summer with ease, but at the end of summer, it's difficult to rememebr school. (Maybe that's our brains' way of blocking painful memories.) 

Summer--and everything you acomplished during that time--is a dream. A very vivid dream. Is that what life is at first, right after you graduate?

I'll be 14 soon, in September. I'm not ready to be 14, I just turned 13. I'm not ready for 8th grade, because that means High School is only a year or less away and I'm not ready to grow up. I'm not ready to be done, for anything to be different. I just got here. Too many things have changed, and I'm NOT ready. I'm not ready to be older, not ready for more responsiblity, not ready to move on and make new friends, not brave enough to try something new. Not ready to date, and I'm not looking forward to how awkward school is. Or rather, teenagers in general. I'm not ready. Read more »

I like the sound of rain. When it hails in the summer, and the wind blows trees so hard they bend over. I like coming up with stories that could actually happen, but would be so unbelievable the book would be put in the fiction section. I like thunderstorms; I like running outside in thunderstorms. I like to do things that make people do a double take, and wonder, "Did she really do that?" I like talking to people and only talking about me; I like talking to people who barely let me get three words in. 

I like snuggling my cat, and going a whole day complaining only once. I like not thinking, and being in beautiful places. I like it when I have a day where nothing fills me up and we have a ton of food in the house. I like biking alone farther than down my street because it makes me feel like I'm going on an adventure, doing something risky. I like it when I'm social and active in the same day. I like it when people like my work or compliment my voice, and I'm really not expecting it.

I like to be shocked (only if something good happens) and having a suprise party thrown for me. I like throwing suprise parties. I like shocking people and being different and impressing people. I like those days when you feel so great you're willing to go places and try new things and dance around the house singing at the top of your lungs, even with friends over, and wear clothing that would normally be uncomfortable, because they're actually in style.  Read more »

I was having a bad day.

I had flunked my science quiz, gotten in a fight with a friend, and embarrassed myself in front of my crush. Although, that last part was practically part of the routine.

It had been a long day, starting at 6 stinking AM and seemed to never end. But eventually, it did, and the bell rang and the teachers let us go and I was shoving a ton of binders and books into my bag, listening to the rest of the school slam their lockers shut and run for it. It was loud, I remember that. A normal kind of loud. Like any other day. I was having a problem with my largest binder and my tiny backpack. I suppose it wasn't really tiny, I just had a lot of things to bring home and no backpack in the world could fit all of my stuff in it. I struggled with it for 5 minutes, as the rest of the hall drained of students and teachers alike. It was Friday--thank god--but I still had a ton of homework. It was weird; maybe  I was just being responsible, and no one else was. Maybe it was because I was more stupid than the rest of my class so I was studying for the upcoming math test while the rest of them were having a great, free weekend, because no one else seemed to take anything home. 

Maybe I was just slow. Read more »

Nothing is the same anymore, all of a sudden.  I've thought about change before, and I know I don't always like it, but I guess I never thought about nothing being the same.

He scared me. Scared me almost as much as the guy on church street who offered me a record deal, with no teeth and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, a bag on his shoulder. The old man still using myspace, who had no home. I was up late thinking he had followed me home, and was going  to take me away. This boy, this idiot, all he did was tell me he cared about me--but it scared me so much. I still lay in bed feeling his presence next to me in a dark theatre. I hate him, so, so much, and he never listens. All I wanted was to cheer him up, but he took it the wrong way. I hate him because he is always sad, and when he is happy, he's insane. 

I spend so much time pretending I have what I dream of, I forget to try to live it in the real world. Because whatever happens in the real world, that has even flashed through my head does not live up to my expectations. But sometimes it surpasses them. 

I'm so conflicted. I don't know what I want anymore. I want to know what I want.                

I guess I'll just listen to Taylor Swift,

and try to forget about it all. 

And remember what makes me happy. 

What makes me happy 

and isn't for attention. 

She had lots of shoes; purple high tops, pink high heels, blue converse, gray sneakers, several different brands of ballet flats. Tap shoes from the lessons she gave up 2 weeks ago. She wasn't very good for 3 lessons. She wasn't good enough to continue. So she quit. 

     The high heels stood in her closet next to a row of ballet flats, sittting under a line of clothes that hung from the rack. The high tops came next, shoved on top of a box that held old papers; letters and grades, diary enteries from 3 years ago, photos of days and people she missed, all very unimportant. 

     The old gray sneakers sat in the back of the closet, hidden from view. They used to be her favorites. They barely fit her anymore, but she didn't need them anyway; she had bright neon ones for gym class. Blue and yellow. Very in. Very cool. Very...headache conjuring. 

     Her father had given her the sneakers when she took up running a year ago; she quit that too, too busy and bored with it to keep going. The medals she had won for track, cross country and races, all tossed up at the top of the closet in shoe boxes. He had been so proud of her when she won those.  Read more »

Hush 

hush little baby

don't say a word

Momma's gonna buy you

a mockingbird

and if that mocking bird

don't sing

Momma's gonna buy you a diamond ring...

The day was so normal. Bright, sunny, cloudless. Or at least it started out that way. By the time Angel Ross was halfway home though, it was dark and cloudy, about to rain. 

"Great, I don't even have a jacket," She muttered to herself as she hurried along. Maybe there was a shortcut. Maybe someone she knew would drive by, see her walking home alone in the rain, and offer her a ride home. She didn't want to end up like that little girl, the one found on the side of the road about a week ago, not too far from here. She had been missing for hardly two days before they found her body dumped on the side of the road, a doll clutched in her lifeless hands. 

Honk! 

"Angel!" 

Angel spun around, realived. "Mary!" Her best friend was hanging out the window of a car that had slowed down to keep her speed. Mary's mother waved from the driver's seat. 

"Angel, come here! We heard there's a nasty thunderstorm coming our way. Hop in!"

Angel slammed the car door just as the rain started to fall. A clap of thunder roared overhead. Mary's mother began driving again, and Mary rolled  up the window.  Read more »

There is something about being with a group of girls that makes me a giggly, almost-self centered bitch.

Something about being with my friends that makes me into someone I'm not. 

And finally, I have realized what they mean by, "It's so hard to be yourself in high school," even though I'm not quite there,

finally, I am understanding things about life. 

Sometimes, that makes me want to turn back, rewind the tape, back it up and pretend I don't understand anymore. Because it was so much easier to not understand. Because searching for, or imagining the answers gives me so much more pleasure, than knowing them.

There's something about being a different person, with each person I meet, that makes it impossible to be anyone at all. I have to choose favorites. "Ok, who am I willing to tune out and be a different person than they're used to?" Sometimes I have no choice. (Like when I'm with my friends, and, yes, their boyfriends are there, and, yes, my common sense switches off; who knew it could even do that?) It's when I just automatically do it, is when I turn into a stupid teenager, something I swore I would never do. 

How do you figure out who you are

when you're someone different

with every person?

     "How do I do this?" She asks. "How can I blindly stumble my way through life like this? Why can't I understand anymore?"

For that, they have no answer. No answer for her pleas for help. No answer for the questions she cries over. Nothing.

They never have answers, the quiet ones, because--and she is quite sure of this--they don't really exist. They are simply a way for her to live. She must believe there is some greater force out there, with absolute control, becuase, lets face it, leaving humanity to strive on its own is stupidity at it's finest. Humans are confused, dangerous, harmless, arrogant, constantly surprised. Part of what makes us human is our dreams of something better, something bigger.

Her dreams, however, have become too real. And they sit in dark corners, the quiet ones, hiding answers from her, she knows it, hiding all the answers, because just like she hoped, like we hope, The Quiet Ones have the answers, mapped out in those dark corners of life. But they do not want to be found. They do not want to share their secrets. Or at least, that's what she hopes. For knowing means no searching, and then there has to be an end, and another thing that makes us human? We fear the unknown, change, anything different. But most of all, we are afraid of the end. The end is the biggest change of all, the largest, "what if". The end, said aloud at the end of each story, the end, a terrifying, infinate thing we try to capture with two little words. Read more »

Do you remember right around this time last year? We were all good friends. You were talking to me, you and him were talking to each other. Nothing was awkward. (Well, hardly anything.)

     You remember the last day of school, at the beach? The water was so polluted I only went in to my ankles, but you went in all the way.

      Maybe that's why he liked you; you're smart, funny, and brave. And, to top it off, have beauty not even supermodels can live up to. You've got beauty on the inside, and it shines through when you smile, when you're around him. I hope that doesn't sound odd.

     Remember that boy, the one we both liked at the same time? It's funny, I don't see him anymore. He...grew up, and all of a sudden, I'm sure I'd give almost anything for him. I am also sure he's likes you. A lot.

     I just wanted to say hi, becuase, hey, I miss you, and it seems like we never talk like we used to. I wonder if that's part of growing up; falling in love with the same guy, not talking the same as we used to.

I just wanted to know if you remembered. Because I do. I remember a lot.