flowers for a ghost

My sister is going to college next year. She's gonna leave the house, move out, be on her own. It'll be weird. Extremely weird. I've never given it much thought until recently. It still feels very distant, but it feels more real than before. Before it was just something that would eventually happen, but I didn't really need to worry about it or adjust. But now, she's got it figured out. She has all these acceptance letters from all these amazing schools with significant scholarships. It's great, my parents couldn't be happier. But it's also scary. And while I'm happy for her, it also makes me wonder. She's going somewhere, she's gonna be something. But what about me?
When I was younger I got straight As because it came naturally, it was easy. And then school started to get harder, particularly math, and I just gave up. My grades dropped significantly and I just consoled myself and said I'd do better next year. But i didn't, and then I told myself the same thing. I promised myself, and my parents, that this year would be different, I would focus more, care more. But I don't. And I'm scared that I'm not going anywhere. I always used to want to go to Carleton, but that will never happen now. It could've, maybe, but I just let it go. I have this attitude that I don't really care, and it's hard to change that whole outlook. I'm still in the top math class, but barely. I probably won't be for long and it's not even that hard, I just give up. I don't want to put any effort into it and now all this stuff is coming together for my sister, and it makes me wonder if things will ever come together for me. I know I need to change, I need to care more, put more effort into things, but it's hard. I'm too disorganized and too far gone. I've slacked for so long, I wouldn't really know how to not. And I know that's not an excuse, but it's all I have. What if a few good test scores and music aren't enough? What if I needed those great grades to go along with it? What if I don't become anything, what if it never comes together? And what if I do try, what if I do put my all into it, and I find out I'm just not good enough?

like a lightbulb in a darkened room

You're like the snow, beautiful and cold. And I'm like the flowers, only pretty in the spring. It's rare when we're both in sync. In fact, it never really happens. No matter how hard we try, it just cannot happen. Because I need the warm sun and the morning dew, and you need the bitter cold and the stale ground. You thrive on the things that wither me, and I thrive on the things that melt you. It just isn't meant to be. We're simply too different, as much as I tried not to be. I just can't survive in the winter, and you wouldn't last a day in my kind of sun. But we can still enjoy the memory, and the fact that we look up at the same sky and sometimes inhabit the same yard. Sometimes you'll even blanket me, even if only for a day. And maybe someday, in some place, we won't be snow and flowers. Maybe we'll be the lake and the sand. You'll cover most of me, letting me play hide and seek on the shore. Or maybe we'll be the moon and the stars and light up the darkness, then fade away and hide out, alone and together. Or maybe you'll stay the snow. And I'll stay the flowers. And we'll never meet. Won't ever get the chance to get it right. But for now, there's nothing I can do. No weather miracles I can perform. But I can still hope, still dream.

she calls herself maria because she likes the name

Everything happens for a reason, right? Every single little detail of your life happened for a reason. It's all part of God's plan for you, right? Even when you make a mistake, even a catastrophic one, it was supposed to happen, right? I sometimes think that that is absolutely true, then other times I think it's just something people console themselves with when life sucks. Most of the stupid things I've done have worked out alright, and led me to realize certain things or led me to something else better. But not all of them. Some are abstract paintings I haven't yet been able to find beautiful. And I just added one to the list. Maybe it's too soon to see where it will lead, but I doubt anywhere good. I messed up, made this huge mistake and I don't know what to do. At the time, it didn't seem so big, and afterwards, I ignored it. And then it just blew up in my face. I don't know what to do. I really don't. I explained things but it won't make it right, and I'm not even sure I want it to be. There it was, my way out, and I didn't take it. I made up some excuse and talked my way out of it. Why did I do that? I couldn't tell you. I don't know why I do half the things I do anymore. I just don't feel like I'm in my body. I feel like I can do whatever and it won't matter because I'm dreaming. And maybe, I am. Isn't that weird? Like, I could be dreaming right now and not even know it. I could be lost inside my mind and not even realize it. I could wake up sometime and none of this would've happened. Wouldn't that be amazing? If I could take it all back. But would I remember that it was a dream? What if I went on with my life thinking that all the things I had just experienced in my dreams were real memories? Sometimes I think I do that. Then other times I can't remember. There are certain things I remember from when I was little that seem really weird now. I can remember a few specific times that I asked my parents something and they gave me a totally false response. I don't know, I'm rambling. So I'm just gonna be done, and go to be.d. GOod night.

part of this terrible mess that you're making

Do you remember when you used to build "forts" with pillows and blankets and furniture? Remember taking forever to build them and playing in them for hours? I remember taking forever to make them look just right and then being disappointed. I'd sit back and look at it and think it looked really cool, but then I'd get in it and it didn't seem so cool anymore. It was small and cramped and dark, nothing like I'd imagined. That happens with a lot of things, they look better than they actually are. Or they seem better than they actually are. I was in the doctors office today, way up high on the top level. I'm there once a month if not more, and every time I come, I'm amazed by the view. They have these huge windows that stretch from the ceiling right down to the floor. And you look out the windows, and there's Albert Lea. Almost the whole town. You can see the lake and the cemetary and the beach and downtown and uptown and trees. Tons and tons of trees. I never realized how many trees there are here. Looking out at it, our town reminds me of a cliche small town, with a pretty lake and cute little houses and buildings. From inside the glass, our town looks cute and perfect. I saw kids playing in the snow, a couple walking hand in hand around the lake and cars waiting at a stoplight. It seemed so cool, so cute. The streets, the snow, the people. But then I thought about what it's like to actually be part of it. To be walking on those streets, looking at the snow, interacting with the people. And it really isn't that cool. It looks so much better than it is. It made me think. I wonder if everything that looks good, isn't really that good. I mean, sometimes it's alright, but it's never as good as it looked. I wonder if all the pretty things aren't really pretty at all. And what exactly is pretty? What really consitutes beautiful? When it's people, it's usually superficial things like nice hair or a symmetrical face or big boobs or big muscles. But beautiful things aren't as easy to define. What makes a flower attractive? Is it the colors? The shape? The smell? Or is it a combination of all of that? Or is it simply the innocence of it? The fact that it grew, that it actually came to be. No one made it, no one messed with it, it just is. But then, wouldn't grass be beautiful? And what about trees? Snow? I guess it's all a matter of opinion. But if beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder, why are we constantly disappointed by what we have, what we think is beautiful?

for the tiniest moment, its not all true

I wonder what dreams are for. I mean, we lay our heads down every night after getting through an entire day of being awake, and we slip into a new world. Our own world, that our minds have created. We have no say in it, in them, they just happen. And when we wake up, we either feel amazing or depressed or nothing at all. I hate waking up to find out that all the things I just had, have now slipped through my fingers. We wake up from this dream where we have everything we want and then its over, and you realize it was just a dream, just a fantasy. I hate that. I really do. Lately, I've been having these amazing dreams every night. And when I wake up, I want nothing more than to just go back to sleep, to go back to the dream and live out the fairytale. I once heard that dreams are your minds way of dealing with things it can't handle or work out during the day. While that makes sense, I think I disagree. I mean, most of them just leave me feeling empty and frustrated. You JUST had everything you want and now its gone. It was right there a minute ago, a second ago, and now it's gone. And you're left with swollen eyes, an aching body and the knowledge that you have to get on with your life. Go to school, to work. No doubt something you're not looking forward to. And wouldn't it be nice if you could just slip back into that dream world where nothing makes sense yet everything feels right, and where anything can happen and routine is just a meaningless seven letter word.

I saw sparks...

If everything and everyone was gone, who would you miss the most?
If you had to begin again, redo it all, who would you want to be there to remind you of how it used to be?
If all of your memories were to be erased, which one would you want to save?
If you drowned in the middle of the sea, or even in your bathtub, who would miss you the most?
If you won the lottery, who would you trust enough to tell first?
If you could never feel again, what feeling would you want to remember feeling? and who made you feel it?
If you were falling, who would catch you?
If you were old, fat and dying, who would you want next to you? Who would want to be?
And if the answer to all those questions were the same, why?

don't tell me if i'm dying

We're too accepting. We really are. We take everything we believe in for granted. We believe that there's snow outside, that it's winter. And we believe that the two people that created us are our family. We even believe that the things around us are really there. We believe in what we see and hear and touch. We do it and we don't even notice or think about it. We take comfort in the routine of it. We take comfort in the fact that if we leave a room and come back, everything will still be there. We believe in what we're taught to believe in. But what if we shouldn't? What if the things we believe in aren't really there? What if we're taught to believe in something that isn't anything?

As children, we believe in Santa and the Easter bunny. We believe in it because that is what we've been taught to believe in. Our parents, whom we trust our whole minds with, tell us that it's true. They go along with the charade because that's what they have been taught to do. It's what they have been told to do. They lie to us. They flat our lie to us. Because that's what has been done to them. Later on in life, we find out the truth, either from them or from our friends accidentally. Most of us are devastated, some already suspected. But why are we so crushed? Is it because we feel betrayed by the people we trust the most? Or is it because something we trusted and believed in so strongly is now gone? Either way, it's a betrayal. But what if there are other things we haven't yet been told? What if there are other things we trust and believe in, that really aren't there? What if no one has been told the truth because they're too scared and we're too gullible.

It's almost like if one day someone decided that Santa really was real. If they set out cookies every year, got excited, even put the presents under the tree themselves because they were too scared to let go. They trusted in it, believed in it, even did the work to keep it up. Because they were scared of what might happen if it wasn't there. Maybe we're all scared. Maybe we're all too accepting, too trusting. We believe in certain things because we're scared of what might happen without it. What would happen if desk we're sitting at, and the computer in front of us, wasn't really there? Or the colors of them, weren't really colors at all? What if we couldn't trust anything, especially not ourselves? What would we be left with? I guess just our feelings. And our feelings are the only thing we don't trust enough. Because we can't really see them, we can't touch them. But they will always be there, even if all our other surroundings were gone.