Only One

"She's the only one who will listen to me" doesn't mean you have an unlimited license to bombard her with your problems.

Because she realizes that fact too.

She knows that, if she doesn't listen to you, no one else will.


How does it feel to take advantage of someone's pity?

Beautiful is never happy

What's the difference between pretty and beautiful?



Pain.

Aren't I clever

Matisse

Not my writing - my sister's.



when i came home two weeks ago
i saw you for the first time in two months

but it felt like i hadn't seen you in decades

you still recognized me, struggling out of my mother's grasp
to jump into my lap
and lick my face
but i knew something was different.

you, who used to race around the house like a white lightning ball of fur
lazed the days next to the glass sliding door
as the sunlight kissed your paling wet nose and stroked your fur

(i could never look at you for too long under the sun
the brilliance of white would have made me
blind)

you, who used to tumble up and down the stairs chasing my mother's footsteps
would whine at the foot of the stairs
waiting for somebody to carry you up

you, who never tired of energy during our neighborhood walks
would sit in the middle of the sidewalk, refusing to budge
until i picked you up and carried you home

i write of love so often
mainly of the romantic unrequited sort
but i think is the first time
i've cried while writing a post

you always knew when i was crying
you'd find me, wherever i was
and lick the tears off my face
as if you could absorb my pain

is it wrong for me to be crying like this
when i realized today that
you won't be there to lick my tears
the day that i cry for you

The reason, perhaps

(For MIT)
I’m afraid of many things, some more embarrassing than others. I squeal at the sight of spiders, my heart goes into overdrive when I look down from a high elevation, and I still have occasional nightmares of getting kidnapped.

But nothing can compare to my fear of asking out girls.

Last April, when I told my mom I was going to ask someone to junior prom, I must have been broadcasting brainwaves of fright, because she abruptly exclaimed that she had no idea there was so much pressure on boys to ask. And I quote her word for word, “I thought it was really easy for guys to ask.”

My, is my mother mistaken.

I had it all planned out – my Spanish teacher would run us through the seemingly routine activity where she would say a few statements (for example, “I would run away from home for love”), and after each one, we would split into two sides of the classroom, one side in agreement and the other in disagreement. Except this time, her statement would be “(the girl’s name) will go to junior prom with Ryan.” If all went well, I would then jump up with a rose and ask her to prom.

Judgment Day arrived, and surprisingly, everything went pretty smoothly.

That is, until she changed her mind two days later.

But contrary to all common sense, that experience actually helped ameliorate my fear of asking out girls. All along, I guess the thing I was most afraid of was rejection. Now that I got a taste of it, I realized that hey, rejection isn’t so scary after all.

Criteria

If you say
That you couldn't see him in that way
What do you really mean to convey?
That he's nothing more than a diversion?
That he's not a part of your vision?

If you decide
That you simply like having him by your side
What are you trying to hide?
That he's important, but not so much?
That he's moved you, but only a touch?

And if you conclude
That you just aren't in the mood
What instead will be understood?
That he's a flower, but not a rose?
That he's your doll, but undeserving of your prettier clothes?

I say to you
Fear the day
That you and your beauty, once again become two
For gone will be
Your submissive diversion
Your uncharming flower
Your forgotten doll.

Forget it.

X+Y=Z

"Life sucks, but the world is beautiful."

I read my vignettes from freshman English today.

I'm slightly disgusted, but still, I'm relieved that I wasn't too clueless in 9th grade. Funny how I was already writing about a lot of the same things back then - friends, being unique, honesty, whatever. I am pretentious and preachy now; I was pretentious and preachy then. Oh well.

I also looked at my first Holland essay - the whole thing about making my bed and valuing the process. And now, looking at how it eventually turned into a college essay...it's a good thing Holland had destroyed that essay.

I still wonder about that story, though. Come April, I'll find out whether S bought it. If they do, then great. [Edit: I guess they did.]

But I don't. I still don't.

Sure, I can say whatever I want about the process, and learning to look between the endpoints. But it doesn't change the fact that whatever I experience now, isn't even worth its weight in cow dung once I turn into food for the worms.

Maybe the point is that there isn't a point.

We search for it all our lives, so my mother says. In middle school, some people already start thinking about it, and in high school, most everyone does (I'm of the opinion that at some point in their life, every teenager has dealt with an existentialist crisis, no matter how clueless they may seem). 

On the cliff's edge, we're still thinking.

It's a fragile thing we have. But the fact that we will never know for sure is what makes it worth it.

Leon loves to bake because he likes knowing that if he follows a recipe, he'll always get what he wanted. It's a constant in a world of variables, and a comforting notion when most of the time, nothing ever goes that simply. I fully understand Leon's thought process; I see the appeal. Start with X, do Y, get Z. Always.

X + Y = Z

It's so simple. So tangible. So understandable.

But I wouldn't want my life to be like that. I don't want to know what my purpose is. I don't want to know what the end product photo looks like, with its perfectly goldened crusts and 5 star reviews. I don't.

I'll always know what my X is; that much I know. And there are plenty of Y's out there for me to try.

But I have only equation and one chance - one life.

I'll never be able to find Z.

And that's the point.

The whole point is that there isn't a point. That's what makes it beautiful.