See -- Saw

Little girl-long hair flying.

Up, down.

Up, down.

High as you can go-but then it gets scary.

Goodnight, love.

All you want is to feel the solid

Smack.

Of your feet on the wood chips, dirty dust, hot rubber.

I’m not ready.

And then suddenly, flying feels like the best thing in the world.

I want that.

It’s the in-between that’s the worst.

Right after, coming down, all you want is

gravity again. Stable, predictable gravity.

It wasn’t               enough.

But even that gets old.

And sailing up, all you want is to get there

Finally be brave enough to stay in the sky instead of flying back down.

I’m ready.

But back down you come; always.

Because you haven’t learned to overcome the jolt in your stomach,

the way you always feel off-balanced.

You always ride the see-saw; you’re an expert.

I thought it wasn’t a problem the whole time,

but I think I just didn’t realize.

But that little girl is growing up;

She’s getting too big for those childish games.

And nobody’s calling you love anymore.

Suffer the Little Children

Sometimes I forget.

It’s not that, when I think about it, I don’t feel that way.

There’s just so much adult around me that I feel it starting to fade.

When I come here, I remember that little girl, standing in the middle of a big, wide world.

And I remember why I’m scared and out of place and disturbed.

Because so is she.

And it’s not necessarily to make excuses.

But I see her with these burdens, not me, and somehow, it takes the stress away, for a moment.

And when I think of her, she is the only solid, defined thing there, and yet

Her eyes tell a story so much different.

There is nothing complicated about her, and yet

Her eyes give her exterior a complexity that projects the soul onto her being.

Her eyes don’t ask to be removed from this place, because she is completely aware of her constantly perturbed state.

Eventually, she thinks,

Eventually, I will figure this out.

But I didn’t figure it out today,

And I won’t figure it out tomorrow, but I can stand here and watch me.

It’s really quite a peaceful experience, watching me.

I am the most fascinating person around, she thinks.

Too bad people can’t see it.

But it’s not something you can boast about, she knows.

It’s the antithesis of promotion; it’s the glimmer you can only see when you tread softly, come kindly. And she catches fakes and phonies-every single one.

So you see, you have to want it. And most people don’t care enough. And some of them, some of them want it with all their heart, but they just don’t fit. And this girl revels in her uniqueness during those times, and feels, strangely, that someone had better deserve it, or she’ll shut the door forever.

But she knows, in her heart, that she’ll open it up one day, fling it wide open and take another soul by the hand, and lead them in, saying,

Come. Come see who I am.

And before that one soul, there will be others. Others that love the little girl, and the adult that she impersonates.

But for now, those girls down the hall might be ones that understand-my guess is that they are. But for now?

I can’t tell. And I’m standing in the middle of black-and-white and rushing grey, and I’m thinking,

I don’t think I belong here yet.

But I’m sure meant to.

Something About It Felt Right

I lay there
and wanted Switzerland.
I wanted the spot where we ate lunch;
bread and meat and cheese.
Oreos.
The richest earth that fell away under the wildflowers.
The little children on their European playground.
The boy and the dog that knew
wildness and what it is to be alive.
The snow and the screams of pure joy.
Hot, melted cheese and potatoes.
The hut just in case we were reminded
how small we truly are.
The fish and my dad's bit of German.
Edelweiss.
The bell that hangs on our wall.
Old leather and mountain air.
I want Switzerland.
I don't want musty air or textbooks or fluorescent lights.
I want Switzerland.
Monty the dog and cute little Daisy Mae.
Pink everywhere, and the tea that we couldn't drink.
The way the floor creaked and the adventure it was to share that bathroom with people from across the world.
The roundabouts, the sunflowers, the cows, the glaciers, waterfalls, hot, sweet, fresh smell of Switzerland.
The rivers that ran milky grey and blue under covered bridges garnished with flowers, both sides, and the paintings that got burned away.
The swans and chocolate and bicycles, everywhere.
The trains that always ran on time but when they didn't,
the duck that just wanted his mom.

The way w's sound like v's and j's sound like y's.
The fact that they didn't allow cars and there were sheep and miniature horses.
The water sparkled; the grass glowed.

The cold, cold water that washed my toes and
the blue and white door, and the dog in the fountain.
Everything was right. Everything was older and purer.
Everything about it.
Really, I just miss Switzerland.

They're Afraid of What They Can Become

An experiment in spoken word

They call me sunshine.

Because I bleed into their lives and, like it or not,

I leave them happy.

And here’s the beautiful thing about happy.

You can take it with you.

Think about it.

All those people I passed by today.

How many were the first to smile at me?

Not a single one.

I don’t blame them. They had stuff to do, boyfriends to break up with, tests to pass. Or fail. You know, whatever.

But me? I had a million things to do and nowhere to be and I just wanted some sunshine.

There’s so much joy in this life right now, and people just can’t see it.

And if they can see it, I sure as heck don’t know it.

Because if everyone lived with their sunshine streaming out of their faces, falling from their tongues every time they opened their mouths, can you imagine? 

Can you imagine?

But the world puts on their sunglasses and goes walking down the street so I can’t see its eyes. But I pulled my shades off awhile ago. I just decided, “It isn’t worth it.” 'Cause let me tell you something. You can’t get to someone’s heart with your shades on. You can’t heal their soul with sunglasses. So leave your shadows, leave your inhibitions behind and I'll call you 
sunshine.

What I'll Only Say if You Ask

AKA Thank you for caring. I wish people would ask more often. But only if they cared.

I couldn’t be present because I pretty much lost it trying to figure out if I could handle all my classes.

I am jealous of all the girls that have more friends, get included more, and go on dates.

I felt so much smarter than everyone else in my review today, because I actually knew the answers. And I wasn’t afraid to say so.

Walking barefoot today was the greatest feeling-I had forgotten how much my feet, not to mention my soul, crave a little freedom.

I am facing a serious concern of getting fat because of the Cannon Center food. And I don’t have time to run as much as I need to offset it.

I wish I could get all my work done and play everytime my hallmates played so I never missed  out on anything.

I wish I didn’t have a calling because it’s already stressing me out and I haven’t even started. 

Tunnel singing is going to save me. It has and it will.

This campus is far more beautiful than I ever thought.

God has told me multiple times while I’ve been here that He expects great things out of me; that I’m capable of the extraordinary.

That scares me to death.

In our first biology class, we played with termites, and I felt bad for disturbing them. I’m sure they were trying to have a nice life. I think we killed some.

I always get cold in the library.

As I’m getting better, other people are getting worse, and when I was worse, they were better.

Sometimes I feel little and forgotten-I’ve got to get involved.

Most days, I wake up stressed out. But I got to bed not so much. What about sleep is stressful and college calming?

Whenever I see boys playing Frisbee in the evenings, I am so jealous that they have free time.

Instead of sleeping, I talk, surf Facebook, and write poetry. Part of the problem.

My life has become infinitely more simplistic now that I’m here, in the sense of living in a small room, going to class, eating, studying, talking, sleeping. The end. It’s starting to get old.

I’m learning when to go to breakfast so I’m not late for class.

I’m training myself to read more efficiently.

I’m learning how to study better.

I get distracted just as easily, but I don’t have a mom to save me from myself.

My backpack isn’t as heavy as I thought it would be.

I love American Heritage.

My bed is a bed and a couch and a desk all in one.

I am scared of doing laundry.

I love the combination of cool air and sun. The best.

The Tanner Building has study spots that I just discovered. I need to try it out soon. They told me to find “my” study spot, “my” niche at BYU, “my” passion. Well, all those things are very good at playing hide-and-seek, and I’m still looking.

Someday

You know, someday.

Someday, it would be nice to be the first one 
to make heads turn when I walked in a room.

Someday, it would be nice to stand out, 

among all of them there, and occupy that brain.

Someday, it would be nice to know that I was picked

FIRST.

Someday, it would be cool to be talked about 
in the de-briefing sessions

After the first day.

Someday, just someday it would be cool to let 
someone else take a turn playing my role at the game.

Someday, one day, it would be perfect to be the one that was 

talked about, thought about, wished about, stressed about.

Someday, I wish that 
out of all the glittering stars in the room, 

I am the one that shines the brightest.

But if You're Crazy, Where's Reality?

"But how could I deny that I possess these hands and this body, and withal escape being classed with persons in a state of insanity, whose brains are so disordered and clouded by dark bilious vapors as to cause them pertinaciously to assert that they are monarchs when they are in the greatest poverty; or clothed [in gold] and purple when destitute of any covering; or that their head is made of clay, their body of glass, or that they are gourds? I should certainly be not less insane than they, were I to regulate my procedure according to examples so extravagant."

-René Descartes

Olivia.....

No.


Olivia......

No!
OLIVIA.....
NO!