Beautiful Simplicities

I used to read a lot. In fourth grade, my teacher made us keep a record of all the books we read that year. For some reason, I kept up with the record even after the year ended. It amazed me when I looked at the record and realized that I’d read a book every two or three days, which added up to two hundred to three hundred a year. Granted, they were pretty short chapter books, but they were books nonetheless. And I loved reading. I always have. As a kid, I devoured mysteries, fantasies, autobiographies. I was that girl that everyone would probably call a nerd, who would be in the school library every morning to get a new book. All of the reading helped me in school, too. I credit my better than average vocabulary and writing skills to the endless books I read back then.

As I grew older though, the number of books began trickling down. I realize that that’s because the books got longer and more complex, which automatically meant I’d read less books as a whole. But I still read. In middle school, I was still in the school library at least once a week to get a new book. I still loved to curl up with a book for literally hours on end and forget the world. The record keeping went on as well; my little notebook of all the books I had read was filling up page by page. Then, I hit high school.

It happened so gradually I didn’t even realize it until recently. My days started filling up with homework and sports. My weekends were for friends, families, and more homework. At the end of freshman year, I looked at my record notebook and counted only about fifteen books. I didn’t love reading any less. It just seemed as if other things took presidence over reading.

It’s now sophomore year and the workload has increased significantly. My days consist of staying after school for a club, going home, doing homework, eating dinner, doing more homework, taking a shower, and by then it’s ten and all I want to do is sleep. I’ve lost a lot of leisure time, and subsequently a lot of reading time. It’s been almost a month since I’ve read a book purely for my own enjoyment. I know that compared to the majority of other high schoolers, I read a lot more than is average. And in these periods of time when I don’t read, I don’t miss it much. It becomes something in the back of my mind, like a dusty box in the corner of the attic. But occasionally, I do pick up a book, curl up, and start reading. And when I do, I’m reminded of why I love it so much. I can still pass hours with just a book and a comfy spot. Reading has the ability to take my mind off of things. I live for the books that have the ability to impact my emotions, to draw me into the story, to make me cry, to leave me thinking days after I’ve finished them.

I hope I don’t ever stop reading, even if I can’t do it often. It’d be like letting go of an old friend.

I walk down the nicely paved road, past the charming little houses painted in pastel colors of deception. I used to long to live in one of those houses. I used to want a house like this, a yard like everyone else’s. Sometimes I stop and wonder for a moment just how much the city’s changed in the past year. Then I think maybe it wasn’t the city that changed at all.

As I continue along my way, I see the curious stares, the whispers, the slight hesitation in gait. They all used to bother me, too. Just like a maintenance crew would hurry to fix a little chip in the pastel paint of the endless houses, I am a little chip in the perfection of the city. But I can’t be fixed. In my difference, I pique curiosity.

Then behind me, I hear it.

“Who are you supposed to be?” I stop, and then turn on my heel to meet the eyes of a girl about my age wearing the blue skirt and badge of an announcer. I know that all of the citizens have been thinking that same question as I made my way through the neighborhood, but the girl was the only one brave enough to say it. For that, I grudgingly admire her, even though her question is accompanied by the sneer on her face and the arms crossed on her chest.

I stand there, my arms down by my side, my chin held up high, and my eyes never leaving hers. All around us, the citizens have stopped in their daily lives to watch our little confrontation. She’s pretty, this girl. Auburn hair falling in slight waves, perfect porcelain skin. But her eyes are cut like stone above her cheekbones. She fits her job well. They always want the announcers to look good, to present the perfect picture of the city.

As I take her in, her gaze rakes down me as well. My plaited dark hair running down my back, my asymmetrical face. Her eyes pause on my waist, where there is no badge. The longer she looks at me, the further her chin juts out and the fiercer her sneer becomes. I remember how I used to be scared of people like her, people who have known their place in the city from the moment they were born and raised to believe that people who didn’t don’t deserve a place.

Her perfect lips speak. “Well?” I break her glare and look around me. The endless pastel houses. The citizens dressed in the uniforms of their life, some of them with their head held high and their clothes ironed to crisp perfection, others hunched over in the shadows dressed in the clothes of a cleaner.  I look past the houses to the tall metal buildings of the city. I used to think they were beautiful, the way the glass windows mirrored rays of light. Now I see them as prisons, escape barred by the unbreakable chain of expectation. Finally, my gaze returns to the girl.

“Me,” I tell her. “I’m supposed to be me.”

We all have hundreds of Facebook friends. Maybe, for some of you, thousands. On your birthday, how many people post “happy birthday” on your wall? Hundreds, right? On pretty much any given night, how many people are on chat? A lot. But stop and think for a moment. How many of those Facebook “friends” do you even like? How many do you even care about?

Wiz Khalifa

You go through each day

your life like a giant building

each piece so carefully placed

perfect, or almost perfect, they say

the building gets higher, bigger

the pieces stacking up

careful

they might fall

but what if one day

a gust of wind comes

your building sways and

with you just holding on

you know that eventually

all the pieces will come tumbling down

and you can’t help but wonder

if you will too

Hey guys, I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything in a few days. I’m just so loaded down with homework. I’ll try to get to it soon :)

Who am I, really?

I am the bird

trying to break free

I am the wanderer

lost without a path

I am the clouds

forever changing

I am the storm

angry and violent

I am the words

written and misunderstood

I am the mirror

reflecting expectations

I am the shadows

concealed and hidden

But yet

through it all

I am me.

A final look

then the soft click of the door

that was so much louder in my ears

than it ever had been before

Taking my last steps

down the beaten pathway

that I had once stolled down

thoughtlessly every day

But this walk was more

for it was the last

the familiar gray stone

that was now quickly becoming a part of my past

The tears that ran down my face

left a part of me in the fray

of the place of my childhood

from which I was walking away

I lay there in the enveloping darkness

listening to the music outside

the sounds that amplified in the quiet

and filled my wondering mind

But the noise of the night was nothing at all

compared to the beat of my own heart

which thundered in my ears so loud

threatening to burst me apart

And I smiled and thought about that one moment

earlier in the day

which had happened so quick and fast

but now, still made me what to fly away