A ballad to the Sun

Winter is leaking in through the cracks in my window, it creeps up through my toes and into my hands. I could swear my skin was translucent and you could see every bit of heat leave my body. In no way could I have possibly been made for this cold oppressive season. I miss the sun, actually on a very personal level I miss the sun. It's like my best friend, my guiding source of adventure and freedom has abandoned me. Hidden itself away behind ice crystals and those emotionless wintery clouds. They are nothing like summer clouds.  The clouds of summer are like paintings made with a purpose; they are bold, thick, dark and angry or they can be light, round, and weightless, sometimes they show up just before the sun kisses the earth as if their only purpose was to add texture to a sunset. Summer is a string of energy, the type of energy that compels you, demands you to stick your head out of the window and scream at the top of your lungs, the energy that impulsively tells you to hold someone's hand or say the words that are on the tip of your tongue that you've been contemplating saying all night. Summer, she tells you to say "to hell with it" and jump off the high dive naked. She begs you to learn something new, meet someone new, and do something wild. She calls out to discover, to try, to experience. Summer is rich, and blisteringly hot, full of sunburns and running barefoot. I want to plant my feet in the ground like the bulbs in the garden and wait till the sun kisses the ground above me to reintegrate myself here. So, if it seems I am being cold, it's probably because I am cold, and if I am distant it's because my limbs are frozen to the ground. This winter has already sucked the adventure from my bones and the expression from my face. If I seem different and not quite myself I hope you remember I've just recently lost my dearest friend.  

May the sun shine again soon 

And may we all live in eternal Summer

-J

Goodnight

I don't get math, I don't understand it, it's cold and straight to the point and clean and cut. Science and art are messy and individualized and completely unclean and equally absurd. They are passion and they are warm and that's why I love them. There's nothing that I hate more than the winter. Having to separate yourself from the sun with jackets and buttons and hiding your face from the wind hurts my soul. I'm perpetually cold and I was built for the summer. I was made with bare feet and a curious mind, I was made to explore. I was made to meet people, and help people, and I was made to make mistakes. I was made ragged and unsure and I was made to want to please others. And really I hate that about myself, I wish I didn't have to care what people thought, but I do. And while I will still wear drop crotch pants and a horribly big and dirty old man jacket I bought, and still haven't washed, from goodwill, I still care about making people laugh. And even the parts I hate about myself I've learned to love, because I am all I've got, I am the closest person I'll ever be to. No one will know my thoughts like I do, even when I try to write down the right words things aren't completely there. But I am trying, I am making mistakes and trying to tell myself how to avoid them again later. I am trying to love more people and to know more things and to think about more things and to care more about more things. I am trying, and I am trying, and I am trying, and I won't ever figure it all out but till the day I die I want to be learning, I want to be taught by children and by veterans, and teachers who love their jobs, from doctors and artists and the homeless, from the ants who when you knock over their hill don't even dust themselves off but only dig again. I am going to be better, I am going to work harder, and I'm going to fall in love with everything I see. 

Goodnight 

I love you

- J

Mr. Vigil's Block Six Class: Chemistry One

I have collar bones and skin, and a face with lips that pull back to smile a smile that you can see in my eyes, my eyebrows move and my lungs fill with air and I can see, I can see a whole lot of things I can see the end of my nose and my hands every line has a story maybe the future I don't really know, but I know what the scars mean when I fell down or when I ran into the wall my feet know what grass feels like, dirt in between my toes, but they also remember gravel and maybe that's what life is, the feeling of grass and of gravel and the space in between, breath in and breath out breath in breath out breath in breath out it's crazy how many breaths you take in a minute or in a year, memories could be measured in breaths the times they sped up or the times they stopped, breath blink stop and stare, from the beginning of time people have been predicting the end of the world hoping, praying that the world won't go on without them, but life will go on, atoms will bond and so will people, people will fall in love long after you are gone the world will spin even when it is void of human life we are not nearly as important as we think we are, I imagine the sun's light is lonely as it travels through space but when it lands on my skin it knows it has found it's home, warming me working it's way through my cells, if there is importance in our existence than it is simply to be. 

A love letter to the Collective Consciousness

One day I will only be mentioned in the past tense. 

And I wish I knew how you'd respond when you heard the news. 

When you realized that memories were all that were left of me. 

I would be forever fleeting in your mind, drifting away. 

Scraps of paper that kept blowing out of your hands. 

One day you wouldn't remember me. 

My future could only ever be thought about in the hypothetical. 

There's something beautiful in that idea. 

A freedom to be remembered in only the best light. 

There's something sad in thinking that you couldn't remember the last things you said to me. 

Someone will remember something about me that will break your heart.

Maybe you'd see a picture that reminded you of how my left eye got smaller than my right when I smiled. 

Maybe you'd think about how I walked on my toes because I was always ready to run away. 

"He liked laying down a lot. 

On the floor. 

On the roof of his car."

I liked closing my eyes and taking big breaths. 

Yesterday I saw two birds. 

Floating above a telephone wire. 

And I saw one fall out of the air, his heart stopped, right in between the beats of his wings. 

And I watched him return to the ground.

And life went on. 

Life will go on. 

Life goes on. 

Go on. 

Look back only when you must. 

Only when you've lost your way. 

My shadow will point you north. 

It's funny living in a dream, since the impossible seems so possible, so tangible. But just remember one thing, I am love, I am in love, and I will always be in your heart. 

 

A letter to Nōōna

You used to be the definition of independence. 

A bohemian with nothing but respect for herself. 

I miss that girl. 

I miss the girl with stars in her eyes, who wasn't afraid to reach up and take them.

The girl who would never be treated like anything less than the most special secret, only to be shared with the most secure lips. 

The girl who only shared her lips with the promises she made to herself. 

I've never seen something more heartbreaking than when the whitest snow picks up the black from the hearts of those who use it. Those who walk over it. 

A woman should be treated like a lioness, respected like a tigress. 

"Don't lose yourself just because you found somebody" 

How many times can I say "you are worthy you are worthy you are worthy" 

Before you realize your place is not inside of someone else. 

Come back to yourself. 

Coffee cups inscribed with cookie cutter phrases and faces, things you pretend your love is. 

But your "love" has made you weak. 

It's time to bring life back to the branches you call arms. 

Too long couped up in the the noun "we" will leave your hands and knees cramped and bruised. 

It's time to accept the love you know you deserve the love that comes from yourself. 

You've been fooled once how long until the shame is on you? 

How long until a new faith entices your "other half" to the eastern wind? 

If he's hurt you let him go. 

It's time to come back home. 

To no one

You keep on running even when your feet are bleeding 

When the wind changes direction and blows sand in your eyes 

You wait for no one

Because you are a summer breeze 

You are the feeling right before your feet leave the high dive, right before the first tear rolls out of your eye 

You are the first to turn up the radio, 

roll down the window and stick your head out because you like to pretend you are only particles in the wind

But you are more than a molecule 

You are the universe 

The matter that holds the sun up and the earth on her axis radiates from your lungs  spills out of your mouth it rolls down your eyes. 

Love yourself.

And one day you will float on 

Flowing down a spiral staircase 

Pouring out across pages and places on a map

And the people you fall in love with and eventually leave

Will remember the time they caught the summer breeze 

Forever is only a day 

And I'll see you soon 

-J 

 

The amorphous generation

To me, the idea of shifting your shape to fit into the shadow of someone else is suicide. A genocide of the morals ideas and talent locked inside the soul. A massacre of potential. Changing yourself to impress your fellow human is a crime to our people and to our race. To take off your skin and put on a new face to pander to your hearts newest interest is heart stopping. So you there, you pick up your bones, stretch out your muscles cramped from crouching too long and put your chin two inches above parallel because you are special. The jokes that are only funny to you, are funny to you and that is all the approval you need. The face you make when you laugh too hard is your fingerprint on the universe. Never ever let someone make you feel small. You speak loud, and when you have an opinion make it clear, when you have an idea make it heard, and when you feel for something you make it felt. Never be enslaved by submissiveness. Chin up arms out, ready to take on the universe. 

-J

A poem.

If we're moving on, I pray when you wear the color yellow you think of me. When an idea completley outrageous and impossible crosses your mind, I hope you wonder if I am thinking the same thing. In boredom I hope my jokes still make you laugh. I hope that you miss me but not horribly. Enough that I am still there, still a part of you, because a part of your heart is a sacred place and a place I am proud to have called mine. So I hope that you miss me, because I, I feel homesick. But I've learned so much because you've taught me so much and the door to my house and to my heart is always open for you. When you are feeling low remember someone loves every inch of you even the worst of the worst parts. Remember the adventures and the times we sat on the couch because each meant something different. I pray that when you feel like you are not good enough you know someone knows that you are. Now numbers, they confuse but I know one thing about threes. From the holy trinity to the number you say brings you luck. Love doesn't happen only once these things repeat themselves if you let them, and I'll be here time and time and time again. So we are here, and if this is goodbye then goodbye but a green light on the shore is there to guide you back home. Life is a winding road and if I don't see you again on this one I'll be waiting for you on one called 1-27.

-J

Braxton

I heard sirens last night around midnight and I didn't think anything of it. They meant nothing to me, however those sirens were the sound of a family's life changing forever.

Last night a group of kids were being kids, driving around being reckless and there was an accident. This accident was a tragedy, a loss of a young life. A car lost control and rolled and Braxton was taken from us.

Braxton was supposed to have a life and go to college and have heartbreak and find out he can't stand his Indian physics teacher who barely speaks English. He was supposed to make mistakes and have adventures and get married and have kids and teach them things. He was supposed to change and grow, have a full life. .. .. But this world is a sad strange broken place. Happy endings have become a rarity and things don't go how they are supposed to.

While Braxton's story was cut short, the story of his family and friends still goes on. And what gets me the most is that forever in their stories will be this gapping hole where a whole person was ripped out. This tragedy will become a focal point of these people's life, it will be the thing they look back to, the thing they will think of everyday, the thing they wish they could take back. But once pages are ripped out, or ink is splattered across a page, they can not be undone.

As humans we find ourselves asking why, why does this happen, and perhaps there was no reason why this happened, but letting this happen and not attempting to draw meaning from it is an insult and a waste.

So from this tragedy I have derived my purpose. I will live my life to the fullest and extract all I can from each day. I will do the things Braxton was not able to. I will not go to bed angry and I will tell those who I care about what they mean to me. Life is fragile and always changing, things and plans should not be put off because we are not promised any amount of time.

I suggest you do the same.

Tell someone you love them

-Justin

Summer

Why is the youth of today so full of sadness? Why are social networks overflowing with words that cry out for help and song lyrics expressing depression? Why do we weep for our summer and drag ourselves through the week to every weekend?

We are broken because we aren't free, we are stuck chasing "the dream" fed to us, get good grades and read lifeless books because they will get you to college were you a free to be happy, but wait focus in college because a job is necessary for happiness, get your job and get your wife and pay your taxes because you are stuck here and your youth has abandoned you.

We are children who are meant to be learning trough our OWN experiences, not being force fed the overdone reused description of adventure. We need our own stories, our own adventures, our own mistakes. How does one acquire life experience and originality when our most impressionable years are signed away to someone else?

We've had our wings cut and feet shackled and we are stuck. But don't be discouraged, because the year is ending and summer will save us.

Make a pact that you will be different, you will have adventures and scars and stories to tell. You will have a life that is your own, forget those who try to stand in your way. Be different, be happy.

Summer is coming

Toninfinityandbeyond

Juan

Mistakes

Derby Kansas

A small place where kids are raised. A place with Sunday schools and playgrounds. A place where news spreads at the speed of light. Even the weather is mild (thanks to the Indians).

Derby is small and comfortable and generally nice. It's been a nice place to grow and to learn but I feel like I have outgrown my home.

In no way do I think I am better than Derby, and I'm not deluded to think that I am an adult who has a life plan and aspirations to read the newspaper and wear suspenders. I know that I am still a child, but when does a child become an adult? Does living 365 days make you exactly one year wiser? Because I know many adults still immature and I know children wiser than most adults.

Age is just a number (I hate numbers) it means nothing, what is truly important is what you do in the days between each age. What you invest your time in, who you invest your time in.

This idea is what brought me to the conclusion that I need more experiences. Not even necessarily good ones but experiences that break me and change me because I need to grow. I need to get out and learn new words and meet new people. I need to learn how to deal with insurance companies and change a tire and drive stick. I need to get stuck on the side of the road without a phone and a realistic fear of being murdered. Maybe I need to make mistakes.

At the end I want stories to tell and scars to show, I want a full life.

Gonna travel the world

- Juuuuuustin

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(I realize this is half incoherent and scrambled, but it's been awhile I'M SORRY OK, I don't feel like rewriting or reading it again. Hashtag sorry not sorry)

Perception

Here we all are, doing things to make people we don't even like think we have our lives together. We spend our time polishing our resumes, and painting on a look of happiness and success. For who? Other equally confused people?

We care more about how we are perceived than how we truly are. I would rather have a life of misinterpreted good intentions than a life of selfish motives disguised by their inherent goodness.

This society of competition and scramble for "success" has ruined any chance of reaching out for help. And it's gross, it's gross that a child can't tell their parents that they feel broken, it's gross that friends can't tell friends that they need help. Why the hell are we here if it's not to help each other? We're here to grow from each other and fix each other, we're to help each other make it through this loud place we are in.

I'm tired of trying to look like I know what I'm doing, really I have no idea who I am or who I want to be. I don't know what I want to do with my life I don't know where I'm going, and I'm ok with it. I'm just a person with no idea where he's going I'm guessing at every turn, sometimes it feels messy and disorganized and sometimes sad but if I've ever learned anything, it's from Mrs. Frizzle.

"Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!"

Don't live inside the box, sometimes even if you know it is a mistake, you don't really know it is a mistake until you make it. And you can't learn if there is nothing to learn from.

I don't remember what I've written, maybe there's something good in it?

I'll leave you with my favorite Tumblr quote

"Not all those who wander are lost"

Thanks for listening... Reading? Go back, read this out loud ......

Thanks for listening

- JuAn KeEm