the start of something new.

Tall, regal trees stand their ground,
with green moss crawling slowly.
Wind whips past to slow him down,
but he searches thoroughly.

Her heart lies there beneath tall ferns,
calling with every beat.
Racing against others and time,
he can’t accept defeat.

He finds it there, dirty and bruised,
it’s beat is slow and silent.
He blows an icy breath right then,
leaving it relieved and content.

The winner takes it all, they say,
but to him it’s all nothing.
He flew away with heart in hand,
with eternity on his wings.

there’s a buzz in my head, not due to a substance.
it’s a drive, it’s a reason, it’s a thought, it’s a focus.

always in the back of the head.
there’s something more, beckoning just beyond the horizon.
will i ever get there?

and if i do get there, will i be blinded by the rays of light?
or will i rise above it all - looking down at all the people.
maybe they’re wondering the same thing.
or maybe they don’t notice.
maybe i’m alone.

will i have to walk there, run there, crawl there?
or will the walls of this box crumble and fall?
will i fly?

until then my window-pane will just be fogging up with my dreams, sighs, and wishes.

the wind is strong, and the clouds rule the sky.

it was frigid this morning - walking to the gym with loose shorts and a thin t-shirt on.
it’s 11:00 am.
and you could tell.

it seems that whenever i am there, i can never find a machine that suits me.
one is not turned on, another’s seat is too high for my stubby legs, one is broken, and yet another has sweat dripping down the edges from it’s previous guest.
lovely.

eventually i find one, while being watched and criticized by everyone else happily riding their perfect little machines.
i get going. bikes are preferable to me, but i get bored easily.
ipods come in handy when that happens.

i find it difficult to pick just the right song to listen to while exercising.
it has to be uplifting, with a fast tempo, a good bass line.

flo rida?
hellogoodbye?
justin timberlake?
kanye west?
rihanna?
motion city?

ugh.

in the lunch-line today, they handed me a paper card, with an online address and a code. of course, if you know me, i came back and immediately entered the code. only to find at my dismay, i had to play a game to get a prize? a game? seriously?

so i dropped those water balloons on peoples heads left and right, laughing out loud while i’m doing this (pretty sure my room-mate thinks i’m crazy). After a solid 15-20 minutes of playing this monotonous game, they have the nerve to tell me that my efforts won nothing. NOTHING??
i was fuming.

my room is a mess. clothes, clean and dirty, sprawled across the floor. almost like artwork.
taking showers always makes me feel at least 20% better about life. today however, could not have gone worse.

i turn on the shower a few minutes beforehand to get it warmed up while undressing, only to find that i could have boiled a pot of potatoes with that water - after i had already experienced the temperature myself. so i turn down the heat immediately, soothing my scalding skin for a minute. i have herbal essences shampoo. i don’t buy this for the label, i buy it for the smell. it smells like paradise.
i want my hair to smell like paradise. so i use it.
unfortunately, i did not notice the thick movement of suds heading straight for my open eye in time.
now i had minor burns on my skin, and on my eyeball.
the legs were feelin a bit prickley, so i decided it would be a good time to shave.
this is a very complicated task when your shower is merely 3 ft x 3 ft.
for this process, you must sit down on the floor of the shower (gross), and swivel the shower-head away from your legs.
quickly lather up your legs in shaving cream and do your best to get every darn hair.
sounds simple, but it’s not when your foot is propped on the shower wall opposite you, above your head basically.

showers are great.

advantages to tuesday: only one class.
disadvantages: it’s math.

fortunately i had done my homework beforehand, and felt pretty refreshed with my knowledge on logarithms and exponential regression equations.
good thing, if i hadn’t been - i would have failed that pop quiz.

feeling fairly satisfied with my meal for lunch, i grabbed almost the exact same thing for dinner.
why not if you have the option to?
it made me smile.

after downing my dinner in less than 5 minutes, i plopped myself on top of my large lofted bed, and began copying down info from my abnormally humongous history book, onto sheets of paper to prepare for 6 essays all due…tomorrow.
but don’t worry. that is now finished, and well-done i might add.

i have found that at grand valley my feet get lots of abuse. every different pair of shoes i wear, creates new blisters and calluses on different areas of my foot.
my whole foot is basically raw. i don’t have enough bandaids.
if you would like to make a donation of bandaids, contact me please.

i really want barack obama to win.

i am going to go watch whatever is on television now.
maybe i’ll fall asleep early tonight.

The concrete sidewalks were slick, but not flooded. Time to bring out the rain-boots.
Faded gray hoodie, and a white headband in my hair to cover up the mess underneath, I trudge to class with my head down. I don’t remember who I may have passed by on the way. Does it matter?

Yes.

Sitting in a lecture class, with approximately 200 other musty, wet, sweaty students was not my ideal Monday morning, but what else did I have to do?
I sit in the back, because this is where I am most comfortable - especially on a cold day like this.

Ansel Adams,
Man Ray,
Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope,
Auguste and Louis Lumiere,
The Black Maria,
Portapaks,
and George Lucas.

Eventually I find myself walking again, with my head down. Music blasting in my ears. It’s a good beat, a solid beat to walk to. In no time I find myself back at my room’s doorway - lunch in my left hand, door-key in my right. I have 4 hours left before walking back out the door to another class.

Days of our Lives was on at 1 pm, as usual. I watch, connecting with certain characters, wishing I was one or two of them for a couple of minutes. So much intensity, drama, excitement. Which life is better though? Living through 1 hour of your life in total chaos, or 4 hours of well, nothing. I try to read a book. But my mind starts to wander as it usually does, and I fall asleep slowly - book across my chest.

And I’m dreaming, dreaming so hard my eyes hurt. I wake up because they hurt so bad. Like a headache in my eyelids. It was a good dream, I can tell you that. I remember the feeling I had waking up - pain and happiness. But I can not tell you what happened in the dream because I do not remember.

I walk out of my room with my head down. I sat next to him, the boy with headphones on and glazed-over eyes. The Silk Road and Alexander the Great does not make this boy alive. Not until he pulls out thin, strips of film from his binder do I finally see his eyes, his real eyes. Now he is alive. And for and hour he is lost in his photography - in the lines and shapes and leaves and people. You don’t have to know a person’s name to know what they love.

The concrete is now dry, but I am still wearing my black-and-white plaid rain-boots. Anticipation of rain? I enter the food court, ordering custom, steaming stir-fry. It was a good day for stir-fry. I like the chopsticks they have. Wooden, raw, a good grip. I push my way out of the food court, with my head down, out of the building and outside. I stop. It smells like wetness, rotting leaves, fresh winds. It’s fall today.

And even though the entrance to my building was only a few yards away,
I walked with my head up -

and I see the sky.