explaining...

the poemtry* that follows is stuff i've written in the past month or so. i wanted to share it with y'all.

*poemtry is not actually a word. but it is in my head.

just another psalm

My God, it is just as these
well-worn verses have said.
It is a dry and barren land, but
this is exactly where you want me.
So I am home.
If you are with me, who then do I have to
fear?
And still I fear.
I am selfish, penning the second
psalms as I cry at the bottom of a self-dug
pit. "Mercy" is my cry. Mercy.
It is the one thing I have to cling to
as those thoughts come again. And even so,
even though I am dwelling in your house
forever, I quickly forget
it is you who saves.
Move through this broken child, tape
me back and dance though my
thoughts, haunt my words, push
the hair back from my eyes and let
me crawl back to where I belong:
inside Your hand, curled up asleep,
awaiting the next battle
and dreaming of eternity.

this thing

the stars are mine tonight.
only i know their facets.
the moon's face i have touched on this
quiet night that is
mine. everything is mine, the trees zipping
by, the delicate barren
branches holding up the sky,
a deep purple sky that is so much
smaller than this
feeling. the world is new, the stars are
new to me tonight. reality and
daydreams merge, only, they explode. i am
reborn. my fingers crackle with a
keen energy. what can i touch?
who can i heal? i am
jumping off the edge, i am
falling. i know it must
end. the crash. the cold.
but i will fly while i can.

the dance

it is a delicate dance, this
careful sidestep, this careful
hiding.
I step -- you step
away
I twirl closer -- you twirl
away you
taunt with promises of
honesty and
friendship but really
- really -

if you do not want me, then you will
have to tell me.
otherwise i will
never give up i will
make the musicians play all
night until we get this
right. Step, one, two -
and join hands. Step, one, two -
speak.
your turn.
shall we
dance?

waiting for what could have been

when night falls
and I lie awake thinking
waiting for dreams
wishing for sleeping
i try to identify
the cause of my unrest
i guess i'm waiting for what could have been

as i grow
and i watch myself changing
unfolding like wings
growing like reaching
i try to identify
the thing holding me back
i guess i'm waiting for what could have been

all the "what-ifs"
and all my wonderings
play themselves over
and over in my musings
unhopeful and worried, lost and alone
i'm just waiting for what could have been

as i watch
my life starts tumbling
wounding my hope
and quickly crumbling
what's the one thing
keeping me from Your arms?
i'm still waiting for what could have been
i'll keep holding my breath for what could have been

yet another psalm

God, you are my God.
Eagerly I seek you, like a blind man
desperate for light. Open my
eyes. If I keep going on like this,
I will die. The sun of your glory
is warm on my face. I can feel
just how near you are. Let me
touch you, hold me in your
strong arms. Your love is a
sweet aroma all around you.
Let me bury my face in the deep
folds of your glory and breathe
you in, out and in, until my
lungs are filled and all I can do
is open my mouth and sing, give
back, return your love to you because
it is the only worthy thing I have to give you.
I will keep breathing you in and
singing out until this earthly breath
dies out, and then my eyes will be
opened, and I will see the sun in
all its brightness and glory. And
I will know the meaning of eternity.
Love God, for He is worthy of our love.
Praise be to God, who warms our faces.
Praise be to God, who is forever.

herbert rappaport

"I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some."

missing this.

the best sunset in the world. two points for whoever knows where this is!

the obnoxious music is gone

it started getting annoying.
so it's gone.

just a life update

life is crazy, good crazy.

1
dentist's assistant: "your face matches your shirt! (laughs like that was funny. it was a green shirt)

2
practicing the presence of God is not something that is easy, momentary, or passing. it is a delicate art of balancing purpose, priority, and humility. and cannot be achieved by anything other than realizing just how small a human actually is.
His arms are always around us. we just have to notice, stop fighting against them. then we can start being useful.

3
dodgeball + wisdom teeth removal + hyper brother = pain

4
when things start going terribly wrong spiritually (i.e., you discover your friends are fighting against some serious spiritual warfare, your family starts going insane, your schoolwork starts piling up) you know that you are on the right track. satan is trying to keep you away from the good that you are so obviously close to doing. trials = joy. although it took me three days to figure that out. slash, my whole life so far.

5
english at college with a psycho jewish lady officially rocks. so does the subject material, writing about survival. already knee-deep in virginia woolfe and journal entries. i live for this kind of thing.
negative side: i had to pull the God card on her on the first day (in-class, write essay about your personal definition of life and survival). i figured the sooner she knows, the better. we'll see what she thought...

6
blogging is easier than journaling. i have a journal, but i never write in it, and i have a journal that i share with somebody, but it's easy to write in that because we pretty much write letters to each other. so i like blogging. i guess i find words come more quickly when i know i have an audience.

7
i got my texting bill back. thank cheese it's unlimited.
1,746. in the past month-ish. the bill might be for just the past 2 weeks. either one is frightening.
it doesn't feel like it. i just find that all my girl friends communicate through texting. it doesn't distract me from school, and i don't do it a lot...it just starts adding up i guess. lol.
i still call people to talk about serious stuff, though. just a thing i have a problem with.

8
A friend said recently, "Being people's personal savior isn't your job."
Ouch.
I know whose job it is, too.
There's a fine line between pointing people back to God, and actually "playing Jesus."
Letting go of control is the hardest thing.

9
I purchased a pair of man pants at Target (tahr- ZHAY). They are red flannel, XL, and beautiful. They were three dollars.
Four days after I had bought them, I realized that the man pants had that strange hole in the frontal section that a lot of men's underwear does.
I had worn these pants in public, around friends, sat cross-legged in them.
Yeah.

10
I love green tea.

my wisdom teeth are gone.

and with it comes a good story. (taken from a gchat conversation. kept in its original, pristine, post-operation ooginess, misspellings retained.)

me: ok

so

13:47 this dentist is kind of weird'

like, you know hes been snorting the gas when the patients go away

so i get in there

and i get stuff clipped to me to take my pulse and my blood pressure

so in come three ladies

like, the dentists girly squad or something

and

13:49 they strap a thing over my nose

and everything starts going....blurry and happy

im not kidding, i could stayed like that foirever

it was .... awesome

13:50 Jesus, friends and first love is the only thing better

...

neways

i kept on seeing needles and drills and giant pliers and thread and all i could think was

i am soooooo happy

there were bright lights

but i was listening to music

13:51 and i kept on sort-of falling asleep

and waking up because the dentist was shouting that something was going wrong

and i wasnt worried

i was so happy.

i crawled out into the car

my mouth bleeding profusely

but i was so happy

13:52 i think i scared my mom a little

i went home

crawled into bed

and woke up tweo hours later with blood all over my arm, and my head very much in pain

very much meaning here that my teeth were having babies or somnething

it hurt so bad

13:53 it still hurts

but at least im not bleeding.

13:54 the painkillers knock me out, so ive slept from 12-3, 6-9, 1-3, 5-11, and ive been up since

its weird

hey, 2009...that's cool i guess.

If you hadn't noticed, the fact that it's 2009 has little OMG!!!ness to me.

I'm one of those people who just generally have an excitement about the future, so little things like numbers and dates have little effect on that...expectation, the knowledge and joy that things can go terribly right and wrong in a matter of moments.

I guess you could say i live for the future. The present doesn't have much effect on me either. Whatever i do now is preparing myself for tomorrow, in big or small ways. I think a lot about what might happen or "what would have happened," not in a worrying way, but in an interested way.

You could call me an enthusiast of the progression of time.

I'm half joyful and excited and brimming with something beyond anticipation...a purpose, a newness, a waiting-for-tomorrow-ness, because tomorrows erase the todays. If that makes sense.

A few things have changed since I last wrote. I think the biggest would be that God has been whispering sweet and terrifyling promises to me. No, I am not crazy. I have a sense of peace about this upcoming year, but I've been warned by Him that it's going to be the hardest so far. Just in different ways. So that's exciting.

Another thing which I think is worth mentioning is i have acquired a Friend. I say acquired because i am completely at a loss for a better verb. Note also the capital F. A very nice boy, whose name you can ask me privately so he doesn't get stalked, decided that he wanted to take our friendship to a different level. So now it's a Friendship, which means that we are in a relationship where we are just pursuing Friendship, not romance. But it's also different than a friendship.

Just to let you know, it's extremely weird for me to say that. The only reason I'm sharing it here is because Friending (as an alternative to dating) has been working out so far for us. I definitely think it would not work for some people, but it's a good idea if romance is both ABHORRENT and UNTIMELY at the moment for you.

Horray.

What else?

I got a new purity ring for christmas. Wanna know what number it is? 5.

That's right. I have lost one, grown out of one, lost one, and broke one. So my parents got me another one.

Please do not pull the "oh, it must be symbolic" joke, because it's already been tired out.

Yeah. I'm very determined not to lose this one. I haven't taken it off. It's very pretty. I can say that it makes me feel like a princess, and I can say it with a straight face, too.

I've also been eating unnatural amounts of chocolate. I've been gaining weight. Like, not in a gluttonous or unhealthy way, just...I am. And I'm not beating myself up about it. Which is really, really big.

So I guess that's all I have for now. I won't say happy new year. I'll say happy future!!