Because I Haven't Been Here in Ages. Penis.

And also because my schoolwork is draining every inch of my creativity so that the only witty or thought-provoking things that appear in my brain are barely long enough for a Facebook status that nobody will appreciate, here is a story I wrote as a project for school a while back, where we had to describe a utopian society using animals. Like Animal Farm. Because it was an Animal Farm project.
Just kidding. I only have the first part on here. So here's a section. That nobody will read anyway.

Rolling hills covered in lush green grass stretched out as far as the eye could see. May gazed out at the fields in wonder, as she did every morning. Waking up to the same view everyday was in itself a new experience, an experiment with stability, security and happiness.
May couldn't remember the time before she was brought to Crystal Lake. All she could recollect were feelings of despair, loneliness, and fear. But that was all behind her now. Besides, she shouldn't even be thinking of that kind of stuff. Rule number one: forget.
Getting to her hooves, May blinked her great brown eyes slowly and set about her routine. Rule number two: memorize. Each cow at Crystal Lake had one job, and one job only. There was a strict policy about this; any cow attempting another job without written permission from another cow announcing they'd switch duties would be publicly reprimanded. This was the worst punishment one could receive at Crystal Lake, and it had been issued only twice in May's lifetime; once when Harold the educator tried to administer to a cow during childbirth, and once when Serena was caught conversing with a wild fox that lived in a den nearby. That was rule number three: quiet!
The cows of Crystal Lake did not interact with any of the other creatures in the land, not that there were many nearby. The other animals had their wars, their silly power struggles, their complex systems of government. Speaking with other animals would only result radical, dangerous ideas, ideas that could jeopardize the safety and serenity of their community. In the Crystal Lake, every cow lived by one mantra: “Only in simplicity is there peace.” This was the unspoken rule number four.
Life in Crystal Lake was carefree, but very structured. The day began at sunrise, when the cows set off to do their various jobs. There were educators, who spent their days teaching the cows nearing maturity what job they would have; calf -rearers, whose job was to watch and feed all of the calves at Crystal Lake; doctors, who administered herbal remedies to cows who fell ill; funeral directors, who were responsible for conducting the funeral when a cow passed away and taking care of the body (deceased cows were pushed off the cliff that bordered the fields to the east and into the sea; that way the bodies would not contaminate the grass); and May's own job, field tender. Her duties consisted of observing the field, making note of the weather, and letting the cows know when they needed to graze elsewhere.
After a few minutes of quiet ruminations, May meandered towards the bank of the lake, nodding hello to all of her friends as she passed by. The herd all met at the edge of the lake in the morning to greet the sun and prepare for the day. Even the smallest of calves, quivering with youthful energy, could understand and appreciate the beauty of the rising sun. Then they would commence the workday, same as any other, and at 6:00 they would reconvene at the lake, and the field tenders would announce the grazing spot for the day. For two hours they would graze in silence, for there was absolutely no talking unless necessary during grazing. Then there would be one hour for socializing before bed.
This hour of socialization was rarely utilized by any of the cows at Crystal Lake. They found they often had little to talk about. This lack of conversation didn't bother anyone, however, because they all could see by the examples set by the other animals that talking led to discontent, and discontent led to war.
The timetable of the day was never actually enforced, as there were no taskmaster cows, but most cows stuck to it anyway. The lack of leadership in Crystal Lake, too, was for the best. The nature of power was to want more power, and when that kind of greed was introduced to a community, even a rather peaceful, simple community, it corrupted the goodwill of the citizens, a quick-acting poison spreading through their veins. As a result, everyone in Crystal Lake was absolutely, irrevocably equal, from the lowest, scrawniest calf to the toughest bull.
The sun peeked above the horizon, as if checking to see if it was safe to come out. May loved this time of day most of all. The silence, solidarity of the stately sunrise always amazed her, even more so than the dazzling array of colors and blinding light. She let out a low moo, and, to her delight, every other cow around her joined in, a huddled bovine mass greeting the new day as one. May watched with awe as the sun slowly rose, flooding the plains with color.
The herd began to scatter, setting off to do their work. May headed towards the platform by the lake, reserved for field tenders to observe the plains. As she trotted over, she made sure to bow her head in reverence to the stone placed squarely in the path of the rising sun, in a way that it was the first thing graced by the rays of the sun in the morning and the last to lose their embrace in the evening. On the smooth flagstone their manifesto was engraved in flowery capital letters- “Only in simplicity is there peace”- and every cow was supposed to pay their respects as they passed.

Brevity

The brevity of a blooming flower is astounding to me
They live only to smell sweet and soak up the sun
If such a short life is filled with such joy
It forces me to wonder
Is the long life worth living?

Kurt Vonnegut: "smh"

Oh man I did this for a laugh. I need to read my classics. I didn't write out the list, it's taken from Tumblr. The bold/red ones are the one's I've read, the italics/blue are the ones I WANT TO READ RIGHT NOW but I'm either too lazy or I don't have the means to get them.

1) Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2) The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4) Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5) To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6) The Bible
7) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8) Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9) His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11) Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12) Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13) Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14) Complete Works of Shakespeare
15) Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16) The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17) Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18) Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19) The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20) Middlemarch - George Eliot
21) Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22) The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23) Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24) War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25) The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26) Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27) Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28) Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29) Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30) The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32) David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33) Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34) Emma - Jane Austen
35) Persuasion - Jane Austen
36) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37) The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38) Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39) Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40) Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41) Animal Farm - George Orwell

42) The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43) One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44) A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45) The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46) Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47) Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48) The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49) Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50) Atonement - Ian McEwan
51) Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52) Dune - Frank Herbert
53) Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54) Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55) A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56) The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57) A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60) Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61) Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63) The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64) The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65) Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66) On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67) Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68) Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69) Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70) Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71) Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72) Dracula - Bram Stoker
73) The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74) Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75) Ulysses - James Joyce

76) The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77) Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78) Germinal - Emile Zola
79) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80) Possession - AS Byatt

81) A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82) Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83) The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84) The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86) A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87) Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88) The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90) The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91) Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92) The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93) The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94) Watership Down - Richard Adams
95) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96) A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98) Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 

100) Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Oh, you're still reading?



No poetry here, I'm way too tired.
Though lately I've felt rather inspired-
It's the perfumed springtime air I believe,
but I am actually tired so I'll keep this brief.

In Which I Reveal Works in Progress

I can never actually finish shit though. Whatever.

Punchline:
I want to beat you with my logic
Cold cock you with knowledge
Love's an unusual dichotomy for me
It doesn't go over well at parties.

Untitled:
I could kiss your poisoned lips
I could lay beside you in eternity
But frankly that doesn't interest me
I look towards the dead for tips

Untitled #2:
Strolling through the graveyard in late afternoon
Watching as ragged trees rattle their bones
And sing for our sins on the spring blossom wind
I crack a smile and I'm home.

Trod on the roofs of the dead and gone
Plots staked out in anticipation of fate
Sparrows ride on the aerial tide above my mind
Stop and wonder at the noise they make.

Lay among the silent population
As leaves rustle and discuss the sun
Stained my eyes with ghostly lies and promises
Yet they still say I'm the lucky one.


Yep.

The Start, Possibly, of a Novel?

Normally I don't care if you guys critique my work or not (though I do love compliments, really, keep those coming), but I really want to know if my writing style is interesting when it comes to prose, and whether, basically, you would put up with a whole novel of it. It's something I'm really self-conscious and particular about, because personally, I think it's boring as shit. But ANYWAY I also need to know if this even makes sense. Love you all.


Hazy night swallowed the beams of light thrown from the passing cars with a hungry gnashing of its teeth, leaving red and blue trails across his vision. The cool tinted glass cast a purple glow over the world, a gauzy sheen that only made the night seem more real and cold. The barrier flowed beside him, a comforting companion on his singular journey, a journey of 'self-awareness' and 'relaxation' if you could believe his well-meaning campaign director, which you couldn't, not entirely. It was made of solid concrete studded with metal bars and chopped up by the occasional guardrail, and its presence calmed his thudding heartbeat somewhat.

"What do you think, barrier?" he thought, and pressed his forehead against the nice purple glass that kept him a reasonable distance away from his friend. Separate worlds, it was safer that way. "Do you think he really wants to help me?" The barrier flowed on, offering nothing but its steady gaze through the night. His head bounced on the glass as the town car jumped over an uneven section of midnight pavement, and each crack of his forehead on the glass sent a dull firework off in his mind, an explosion of ashy gray and yellow. Even the fireworks in his mind were dirty.

All of a sudden the barrier was swallowed up by the ground, which was coated in a crystalline dusting of sparkling snow, though the cool green grass poked its spiny fingers through where it was able. James's eyes widened, endless spans of glistening black from his dilated pupils, and he pressed one hand against the glass. Dark hair sprouted on his fingers, which were splayed wide apart on the window. His surprised stare locked on to the stretch of grass where barrier had only recently run alongside their car, and his heart ached for his fallen friend.

Then, as quickly as it had dived underneath the terrain, barrier leapt forth victoriously from the earth and resumed its sprint. A ghostly smile split on James's face, and the window reflected his tombstone teeth with an ethereal glow. As he watched the barrier, so strong and steady, was replaced by a guardrail, which scurried on its spindly legs, only to be overtaken once again by the concrete wall, and the two played a game of cat and mouse alongside the black town car as it sped down the parkway.

A violent buzzing tore his gaze away from the wonders of the nighttime world, and James swiveled on the smooth black leather seat to locate the source. Dave reached into the inside pocket of his expensive charcoal suit to grasp the vibrating phone.

"Hello?" Static burst forth and buzzed busily around the interior of the car, and James shut his eyes briefly against the invasive noise.

"Davey boy!" said a jovial man on the other end, his voice bursting through the static. The silence in the car allowed James to hear their conversation without meaning to.

"Harry, how are you?" replied Dave briskly, his tone clipped.

"Listen, Davey," continued Harry, ignoring Dave entirely, "I was telling Mickey earlier--" Laughter filled the car, though both Dave and James bore stoic expressions. Dave held the phone a couple of inches away from his ear as he waited for the mirth to subside.

"Shut-shut up! Shut up, I said!" shouted Harry to his friends, and after a couple of seconds the car was quiet again. "Anyway, Davey boy, like I was saying, I was telling Mickey earlier that after you've finished with this- this 'vacation'--" Jeers could be heard through the phone's tinny speakers, and James cringed and returned his gaze to the window, though he continued to listen. "When you've finished with that, you need, you have to come back here and BUY US A ROUND!"

 Laughter and catcalls erupted once again and Harry chortled in Dave's ear. Dave could imagine Harry's considerable girth shaking as he went red in the face, the result of too many drinks and faith in his humor. He was suddenly thankful for the quiet car trip, though James was certainly not delightful company.

"Yeah, like you need more alcohol," he returned, and Harry chuckled good-naturedly.

"That may be true, Davey boy, but at least I know how to live! How's the trip going, anyway?"

"We've been driving for the last three hours or so," said Dave with a touch of exasperation, "and we're probably about two hours away. It's peaceful."

"I bet it's peaceful. I bet! You'll be getting all the peace you could ever want, am I right, Dave?" To Dave's great annoyance Harry began another round of laughter.

"Yeah, Harry, yeah. Listen though, I've got to be going now, I've got to go."

"Oh of course. Got business to attend to in that town car of yours, eh?" said Harry, and Dave heard the jest in his voice and the sparkle in his brown eyes. "You do that, then. You work. I'll just stay here, if that's all right with everyone," and in the background Dave heard shouts of consent firing like gunshot. "Just remember Davey boy. You finish up with your work, your important vacation and image-saving, and then you haul ass back here and you BUY US ALL A ROUND!"

Dave sighed and hung up, not bothering to say goodbye, and glanced over at James, who was sitting in his characteristic-as of late- silence, staring moodily out at the upstate New York nighttime plateau. As usual, Dave couldn't fathom what was whirring around in that overactive brain of his, but he hoped it wasn't anything that was going to make his job any more difficult than it already was. Thoughts of work began a parade of worries and stress in his mind, and he rested his head on the side of the car, letting his ruminations swirl.

Look, Shit!

Going on my previously hatched assumption that no, nobody gives a shit what I do, I'm gonna post some works that aren't necessarily edited or polished to perfection, against the advice of the type-A perfectionist/neurotic who inhabits my mind sometimes.

You'll Just Have To Trust Us

What a price to pay for freedom
What a prize is awarded at the end
While the world parades deaf and dumb
Yet still there's this shuddering trend
Violence and inhumanity reigns
What queen has taken her throne?
We're helping, trust us, however faint
You'll just have to trust us on this one.

Other Stuff
Birds and song and sorrow
That's all I can hear
in the depths of my mind a party thumps
and a voice rises from its casket
"hello hello" it says joyfully
a keener joy was never heard
a fierce fright bubbles forth
today something new takes hold.

Absent and Invisible

I've just been lurking lately, because I haven't written anything in weeks and I'm too tired all of the time to do anything really. We have one week left before spring break, and, in typical high school fashion, it's going to be absolute hell. First of all, I have tennis conditioning from 2:30 to 6 every day, and I'm not in shape at all. Three and a half hours of wall sits, planks, sit ups, suicides, drills, push ups, and a mile run every day. I'm kind of scared. Scratch that, I'm really scared.
However, I did realize one thing. The reason I haven't been writing lately, the reason I've found it inexplicably hard to express myself through the written word for like the past month and a half, is because I haven't made time for reading. I keep forgetting that when you stop the intake of creativity, you also pinch off the outpouring of it. To fix this problem, I booked it to the nearest Borders (get it? booked it? to a book store? lamepuns) because they're going out of business where I live and bought like everything in the store because it was like 60% off. Currently I'm reading All the King's Men which, frankly, I'm surprised I haven't read yet, seeing as it's right up my alley. I have a hefty reserve of books now, but I'm also very open to any suggestions.

Well, yes, this is been yet another pointless and writing-free post. I have a plot for a short story brewing in my mind, so we'll see how well I'll be able to start it with my crazy week coming up. I try.

Japan...

I really don’t know what’s going on. I get really freaked out every time we have any kind of inclimate weather, from the craptons of snow we got this winter to the flooding in our state this past week. And now this earthquake/tsunami combo in Japan… it just really, really freaks me out, and it makes me wonder if anyone else is scared, too. I don’t study geology or anything, so I can’t tell you the physics behind this stuff (beyond whatever was in An Inconvenient Truth), but I think that all of us can feel it. I don’t think the world is ending. 2012 is preposterous and I think it’s just stupid that people can believe in that. But we really need to look at what we’re doing to this world… we can pray all we want, but we also have to take action.
I have friends in Japan and I’ve texted my friends who’ve heard that they’re all okay, but I can’t help but wonder what it’s like for those who haven’t heard back, or worse, have heard back and received bad news.
It also pisses me off that while everyone on Tumblr is freaking out, posting links to donation websites and generally spreading awareness, not one of my Facebook friends has posted a status about it, and when I do nobody likes it. Jesus fuck people. Empathy.
I'm gonna go express myself in more creative outlets.
In other news my followers seem to have disappeared, but hopefully this message reaches people anyway.

You can also donate to Doctors Without Borders here, or text REDCROSS to 90999 to automatically donate $10 to the Red Cross, although I've heard rumors about the Red Cross being discriminate in their help, so I'd go with the Doctors Without Borders link if you have the means to do so.

It's Not Poetry, but Surprise Surprise, Writing

I have a problem. It’s not a problem you can see or hear, taste, smell or feel. My problem is myself. I get inside my brain, fuck things up in the vast space. I kick over buckets of self-esteem and chuckle as it spreads bloodlike over the membrane floor. I stack up neuroses in towering spires in the dusty corners that confidence once occupied. While unconscious, I steal into my memory and slip the tiny ones, unimportant ones, so that I might not notice, into my endless pockets and flee. Obsessions crawl through the tiny cracks, attracted to the crumbs of worry left over that the vacuum of apathy missed, crablike on their spindly black legs, sharp teeth clacking as they chatter mindlessly. Dressed in skintight black, I squeeze through multicolored electric passageways into the deepest recesses of my recollections and scribble over some of the clear glass plates in Sharpie, aglow with self-sabotage and adrenaline, and while I’m there I stop to pick up some of the plates filed away in the cabinet that sparkles and shines, throw them up in the air and scream with laughter as they shatter into glittery pieces of doubt and second guesses. Hormones, those little fuckers, spill out of my drooping shirtsleeves and plunk like pebbles all around me, vibrating and pulsing, clotting up the rusting metal doorways to common sense and rationality. Before I depart I draw a ghostly knife from my belt of mayhem and send it whirring through the dead air, whistling a phantasmal tune as it rips a hole in the fragile cloth binding between my sanity and a sparkling void that yawns behind it. It’s only a little hole, so infinitesimal that it cannot be seen with the untrained eye, but every time I visit I fling another phantom knife and worry away at that vital cloth.

The worst part is, as I write I’m already slipping away with my red pen, searching through drawers of accomplishments and records, finding this story and marring it with insecurity, striking through the center a bloody X, the kiss of death for every story I’ve attempted to bring to life.

Matthew Gray Gubler is on Tumblr and I Feel Insignificant

So. It hasn't spilled over onto Blogger yet because I've expressed myself rather fully on Tumblr and Twitter, but I am rather prone to fangirling. Over a lot of different things; mainly music groups, The Beatles, Motion City Soundtrack, etc.
HOWEVER, my latest obsession has been Matthew Gray Gubler, of Criminal Minds fame (he plays Spencer Reid). I mean, I'm not stalker type variety, but... I fall in love easily.
And now he has a Tumblr.
And my Tumblr pretty publicly showcases my, er, love. I'm freaking out a little, but hey, if he ever miraculously follows me back, I think my feelings of joy will eclipse any worry about a restraining order.

My feelings of insignificance stem from 1) a lingering feeling that I'm too young for everything/one I love, and 2) I will never be famous and/or witty. Definitely not witty. Have any of you noticed my insecurity about witticism? I WILL NEVER BE WITTY, JUST MILDLY FUNNY WHY IS LIFE SO UNFAIR.