prose for once

hey =p as you may have been able to tell if you are SUPER perceptive, i have run out of poetry material for the moment. If I have to, i'll delve into the archives and come up with some old stuff... all of it is rather personal, but we'll see how it goes. Well.. I polished war and peace, enduring tolstoy's pedantic if interesting treatises on history and the nature of history and such.. it was 1 in the morning and the book was making me nauseous but the thought of having to read it tomorrow was worse =p so i got it down. I have to talk about natasha rostov, she's the strangest character in the book. She's a young girl, probably about my age... pretty, graceful, a good singer... but her whole personality is so fascinating and magnetic that she charms everyone. It's just so vivid.. and she's so naive and everything to her is either new and wonderful or terrible and heartbreaking. She falls in love at least three times... she seems to be tolstoy's vision of the typical young girl, spellbound by the world around her. Being in love is her natural state, she's impulsive and innocent. It's cool.
lol i'm into tale of genji now.. it's this ancient japanese novel, from like the 10th century. Genji is this amazing, smart, talented, handsome prince =p he's just superlative in everything. Always the best. And the book is about his life... it's really interesting... apparently in ancient japanese culture, everyone was expected to be able to make up tankas on the spot, with clever double entendres and allusions to other poems. It's kind of interesting how women were supposed to meet fixed standards. They were judged on how dignified and proper they were (dignified without being stiff, proper without being cold), the style of their handwriting, the skill of their poetry, their ability to run a household, their taste in clothing and behavior... it's interesting because if they satisfied a man in all those categories, they were a satisfactory woman.. and if not, then it was a flaw that might or might not be overlooked. And in society today... what are women judged on? someone tell me. It all seems so confusing. Am I supposed to be smart so that i can challenge a guy's intellect, or stupid so that he can feel smart? Obviously i'm supposed to be pretty... what about how i dress? I've been criticized by different people for dressing too conservatively or dressing not conservatively enough. My ability to run a household? Guys aren't supposed to care about that anymore =p but it must be a factor, right? It just feels like the basic message i'm getting is that i'm supposed to find a boyfriend and then cater to him. It doesn't matter what I do, as long as it's what he wants. Does anyone else feel like that? It's wierd for me. I ignore it because that's the worldly view, not the Godly one =p but still
toria

#32

i thought i needed to be dazzled
make me blush, make me faint,
sweep me off my feet,
string words together in phrases
of pure poetry that stay in my mind
like stars
sing me soft into a sweet sleep
and make me think that i'm dreaming
and that i need you because
you perpetuate the dream
ground my life so that without you i'm
shaking and scared
warm my life so that without you i'm
shivering and cold

i thought you needed to be catered to
forgot myself, lowered my voice,
took down my assertive wall
silenced my doubts and fears
learned how to defer, how to
soften the spine i was once so proud of
how to want nothing that you didn't want
forgot what it means to stand up

and then one day it all fell back down
the dream faded around me,
elusive like smoke it flew away from me
the ground under my feet plummeted and
the warmth on my face flickered out like a candle
yet i remained, somehow grew back everything that was
shadowed and subdued
that shadowed and subdued itself
i don't know if i'm bitter or if i regret anything
all i know is i'm not going back

# 43 (jeff)

his day is full of sparkle and shine
he walks down the halls, living on borrowed time
but he lives it up, takes it for all he can get
it's the only refuge he can take from regret
that swamps him at the end of the day
when the sparkle fades away

his life passes by in the switching of masks
with his friends he's the cool one, the best, and he basks
in the person he turns into when he's around them
but that leaves the time when he's not with his friends
he feels dead, he feels numb, he feels gone
solitary, just waiting for dawn.

it's been a long time since he's been touched this way
since something real came to him and took him away
from his carefully hidden silence and gloom
from the person he is, alone in his room
he sees now that he was asleep
silenced by all of the secrets to keep

his only fear now is that he might fall back
that the light and the air seeping in through the crack
in his armor will leave him and someday he'll fade
that he'll suffocate and he'll wither away
to the ghostly prisoner he knows
surrounded by friends, all alone.

herself

so in my quest to get back into writing, i'm starting small.. with little... thingies. I do not know what to call them. They're thingies. I have no clue what i'm doing.. but while I wait for a good concept, I shall exercise on these.
She doesn't think they see her. How can they be scrutinizing her so closely, and still not see? She hates that feeling, and she gets it all the time. Sometimes when she's walking down the street, she'll hear a car honk and sometimes, if she's lucky, some guy will put his head out the window and yell something unintelligible. She used to want that to happen. She used to think it was confirmation that someone thought she was worth something, that someone liked the way she looked. But now it makes her angry, because she's made the fatal mistake of learning what she's worth.
She used to take her cues from everything around her, and she was good at it. She could tell what her friends were thinking, her teachers, the people she wanted to impress and the people she wanted to approve of her. She was so good at adapting to what someone else wanted.
But gradually she realized that she was only really comfortable when she wasn't taking hints from anyone else, when she ignored everything and became herself. And now when someone comments on her body, it just makes her realize that they think they see her. They think everything they need to know about her is on the outside, and for that brief second as she walks by, they own her. And that gives them the right to say whatever they want. They think they have the right to judge her, and it doesn't matter if they like what they see, they're missing everything important. And they don't care. To them, she's only worth what she looks like.
She has to shake off that feeling when she gets it. For that second, she feels as cheap as they treat her, and for that second she turns back into the person who takes her cues from other people and lets them tell her what she's worth.
And she turns away and takes a deep breath, she lets her brisk steps take her back to herself.

heidi's blog

oh, honey. How do you do these crazy opening-up posts? I pride myself on being open and I can't do half the things you do.
ok, ok, ok. Deep breaths, songstress. I can see now how it might be really frustrating to have people post stuff like "stop thinking of yourself as a horrible person! you're a wonderful person!" which is pretty much what I was going to comment. So i shall not. But I CAN volunteer to be that person who keeps you accountable, yes? lol just a suggestion. Of course, 'someone who understands' .. well you would have to enlighten me first, if you want true understanding. But I think i get the picture. All I can offer in the way of help is something God taught me about change. (funny you should mention leslie ludy =p i just ordered that book)
I used to feel really damaged and messed up, as well, in a different way. But it was also quite depressing. You know about all those relationships I've been in, and out of... then in again.. then out of again.. well yeah. After awhile you just feel... kind of stretched and shapeless, like a rubber band that's been pulled too far. And you know about the harassment thing... well yeah in general I just felt damaged. Like I couldn't be new, or fresh, or even fully functional, in relationships anymore. After curt I plummeted into this dark, depressed state where I blamed everything on me. I wanted to believe that i was a terrible girlfriend. I wanted to believe that i deserved that pain and confusion. I had this vicious desire to torment myself and come down on myself, to this day i don't know why. I just couldn't get out of it, sometimes i didn't want to get out of it. And even functioning day to day.. i have problems bonding with friends.. I have issues with trust, with commitment, with depression. I can be very depressing too =p I have issues with self-image.. most of the time I'm ok with my body but sometimes i just absolutely hate it. I wish i could claw off all of the fat.. i scare myself sometimes, when i get in that mood. I have days where i just avoid mirrors. ANYWAYS. Awhile ago I was so down that I just couldn't understand how God could ever heal all of my wounds. Nothing was working. Me, the great independent toria, I couldn't do anything to help myself. Aaron had just decided he'd had enough of my depression and neediness, clearly friends weren't the answer. I felt so, so, helpless and trapped inside my own warped psyche.
And then I remembered God.
When I got home, I picked up the first bible i saw and read this verse - Acts 2:25-27
"David said about him:
" 'I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
26Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will live in hope,
27because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
28You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.'"
That's all I've got for you this time. I can't argue with anything you've said. I have to agree with it, because you said it and you should know. But 1) i can help if you want me to =p and 2)God can change all of that. Somehow he transformed me from someone who just couldn't stop herself from getting into relationships... to someone who is looking at waiting YEARS. lol I'm not saying "look at me! I'm perfect!" because I'm so totally not... I just want to give you hope that God can change you, even when nothing else is working, even when you're scared to death that you'll never escape from yourself. lol but i must warn you, he likes to work slowly =p and he likes to work from the inside out. So once you pray to him to change your heart, it might be months, years before you realize that he's slowly, gradually changed things that you didn't even realize he was working on.
as for husbands and boyfriends... refer to my list of 17 Top Reasons You Don't Need A Stinky Old Boyfriend Anyway. I know all of that is hard to remember when you're lonely... i really do. I know loneliness =p but... well... dahhh. Toria has nothing to say. But i love you =p even after reading your blog and absorbing every word. Unconditional love is my gift =p usually it backfires but you're not a boyfriend so i think i'm safe :D
toria

well.

lol I feel bad for not posting in so long. I feel better now. Yeah.. we just had infuse.. and because I'm a terrible person and because it was in the middle of exam week, it was really hard to get friends to come. As in I couldn't =p lol better luck next time. Sighz.. exams are intense... but I'm sure I'll make it through. As long as I become a chem genius at some point tonight.
shhhh.
yeah.. it's hard to blog right now cuz nothing much is going on... I still have some stuff to get through before I can say everything is fine =p we'll see how it goes.
thanks to everyone who commented or otherwise supported me through that thing =p
toria

silence was better.