|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| I resent my beauty.
Declarations of it crawl
through my mind caverns
carelessly sitting on
dream smoke
crushing the fingers
of other worlds
splashing in the seas
of epiphany,
so where there was clarity
there is murky marine froth.
These words look for their reflection
in the broken glass suspended
within the foggy forest of regrets
(that I always swear I don't have)
Don't mistake my looming
oafish resent as despising what you love.
Take me in your arms when
I see through others' admiration
for crumbling mascara,
so that we can live in
the beauty of our colliding hearts.
| | |
| Prompt: Tell us about an intellectual experience, project, class, or book that has influenced or inspired you.
Swerving back and forth so that my wheels start circles, I glide. Rollerblading makes me forget how to stop. Finally, I reach the end of my street, enclosing it with my invisible path. Night hovers in wait, and the air struggles to hold my thoughts. It’s been three weeks since I left Brown. On my bedside table rests letters from the people I connected with there, friends who are now enclosing their own circles. My journey is complete, but am I missing something? I put my head phones back on and glide off to reinforce the circle. Scrolling through the artists in my Ipod, I see T. S. Eliot, and I instantly know he fits this night. The stoic echo of his life resounds in my ears. Each word betrays death and endings like the first drop of water from a hurricane. Suddenly, there is a safety in my circles, in my return to my beginnings. The circles and cycles we complete in our lives complete us. They lasso oceans of thought, passion, and epiphany, so we can plunge back in when we need to be immersed. I remember a discussion my Brown precollege class had about literature’s relationship with it’s predecessors and followers. The present influences the past just as much as the past creates the present. Everything is connected in ways I never before grasped. The circles are not desperate fences trapping my life in pleas for simplicity. They are not kiddy pools trying to contain the seas of Brown and all that I have learned. They are not closing me off to clothes-pin choices, or pushing me towards dead-end thoughts. They are spheres, whole new worlds dense with life, light, and answers.
“Would it have been worth while
To have bitten off the matter with a smile
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question”
I, Sarah Lombardo, believe that the answer is yes. Yes, it is worthwhile to come home and see what I learned at Brown thrive on a quiet street deep in the Pine Barrens. Yes, enlightenment is waiting for me and I have the passion to plunge in after it. Yes, the ball of answers still rolls under us even if the questions are unclear. I glance at the tree branches, like Atlas’s arms overhead against the onslaught of stars. It doesn’t matter if I don’t know how to make time or my wheels stop. Weeks ago, I laid on the greens at Brown, feeling complete as I listened to the flow of others’ thoughts and watched my own weaving into them . People blasted music and let their eyes chase after passing people. Here, my thoughts and Eliot‘s voice disrupt the surrounding quiet, but the sensation is the same. I’m an open net in a world full enough to sustain me forever and to let me echo on for all eternity. My circles are just starting.
| | |
| Every single heartbeat, thought, feeling, and occurrence can be be predicted. Our lives function live complex clockwork. Nothing is random, absurd, coincidental, or accidental. It only appears that way because we fail to see the domino effect of our every action, and of the world around us. By dismissing chaos in this way, it may seem like we are depriving ourselves of power. However we do not need to be the only logical or controlled beings in a universe of random inconsequential happenings to be important. This is true, because we have the power to create within ourselves. We can choose the way we want to see everything around us and everything within us. We can practice patience, understanding, and dutifully hunt for insight. Through this we create the rows of dominoes within ourselves that will fall to trigger the change we want in our world and our lives. For better or for worse, this occurs. So we must take responsibility enough to recognize that when we only receive results that oppose what we want, we cannot simply blame everyone but ourselves. We must, then, recognize that something internal caused the collision that hurt us or others. We must commit to rearranging our dominoes. The first step in this gradual process is to consciously work to shift our perspective and our priorities. Although it is often easiest to do this in the aftermath of mistakes as a method of consolation, we can do better. We can pursue real beneficial change by making an effort to widen our perspective within the moments when it seems hardest to do so.
| | |
| I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot.
I don't do what's best for me, and I sit back and watch myself suffer for it. I treat my emotions and impulses like they're all powerful gods, and I guess that's my excuse for not taking enough responsibility for them. I miss you. Be here.
| | |
| I steal a sacred glimpse at you. The second’s separation from the racing white lines beneath our rumbling caravan makes me shiver. One hand off the sweaty-palmed wheel. Your fingers flicker against the tension of my free hand. I laugh, an eruption of genuine surprise at our life. We’re both wearing the clothes that littered the motel floor last night, in the deeply beautiful corruption of a place that couldn’t be home. In many lives today, we were gypsies, gods, and gremlins. We prowled through cityscapes and empty fields. We discovered the ancient secrets of light on prairie grass and shadow beneath bricks, only to give it away to every passerby with our smiles. Dense energy swells in me, my skin revolts against the constriction of clothing, and you turn the music up. Your voice hums under the familiar chaos, and its all I can hear. Only you are fluent in my language.
| | |
|
