Speed Poetry

As midnight drew nigh, two poets turned face-to-face and tested their hands and skill. Whizzing back and forth like two-minute bullets, they searched their souls and let words of love and pain spill unfettered onto the paper (or screen, as it were).

Sirenia Featherheart:
I look at you
and my pancreas just weeps
and hurts
because all of the insulin
in the world will never be able
to break down
your sweetness.
And so,
I cannot take it in.
It clogs my arteries like dead rivers.*
And I am so sad.


thoughts of. rivers of. tears:
In the middle of the day
at 12:03 P-M, I think of you
and you are like sugar in my heart
making me happy
like I was never happy before
Will you love me back
because at 12:03 P-M, I love you.


Sirenia Featherheart:
Sometimes I wait for you to
whiz by me
like a freight train
with wheels
and love for me like a big silver bullet on a steel track.
My suitcase
is by my foot.
My foot
is by my face
because
every time I see you
speeding by,
all I can think to do is stuff
my foot
in
my face
and wish that you
would slow down
just a little bit
for me,
just a little for me.

Dang,
I missed the train again.


thoughts of. rivers of. tears:
I wish you would look at me
the way you look at your dog
and your pet turtle
and your dinner
and even
her
but you will never feel
this same way for
me
because your dog is loud
and your turtle swims
and you are hungry
and she is your girlfriend
and I will never be.

--
* Phrase "dead rivers" © Sirenia Featherheart 2013.

The Nautimander!!

Digging through my old picture files recently, I stumbled upon this treasure that I drew in Paint one day when I had nothing better to do. Enjoy.

the horror! the monstrosity! (... the best pet ever?)

*facepalm*

Tinkly music.

DAN: (on the phone)  What? Oh, that's just my sister's stuffed lamb. It has a button...you press it and it, like, sings...

A pause.

DAN: No, my sister's fifteen. 

2-24-12 Miscellaneous

Because I am terribly lazy.

• The precalc test today was not worthy of the worry I gave it beforehand (thank you, Lord!). I did find, however, that I am terrible at multiplying beyond the twelves without a calculator. It took me a good minute to figure out 13 • 13. Sigh. 

• We have begun to play the evolutionary-model games in Bio. "The Finches of Candyland" was a lot of fun. I was a chopstick finch and had to move various pieces of candy from one table to a cup on another. M&Ms are hard, Nerds are ridiculously difficult, and gummy bears are the best. They are just so delightfully squishy that I could grab them even when they made me use the chopsticks with my left hand. Looking forward to playing GlumpGlumpTime (my group's game) on Monday.

• I spontaneously developed a rivalry with Marina while playing Frisbee, which entailed a lot of yelling "NO!" and half-tackling. If I can't catch it, neither can she!! (That was fun.)

• The difference between shame and guilt: I believe guilt is a state of being--as in, you are innocent or guilty of doing something wrong. Shame is an internal feeling that can be independent of real guilt. For instance, you could do something and be guilty, but feel no shame for it; you could also be wrongly accused of something and still feel shame for the perceived guilt. It turns out that many people disagree with my definition. Thoughts?

• Tim has this awesome connect-the-dots coloring book of legendary/mythical creatures, and he let me use it. I spent all of last period connecting 459 dots to make a Pegasus. I NEED ONE OF THESE BOOKS. 

• Alix and the rest of my robotics team departed for Williamsport this afternoon, as there's a competition there tomorrow. (I couldn't go because I'd already signed up for the Praying Life conference.) Best of luck to them!

• I have been working hard on the Elwood-Harvey portrait, and I'm almost done. All you drama peeps will see the finished product on Monday. The rest of you will have to wait until the play. 

 "This portrait over your mantel. Who painted it?"

"Um...me." << Haha. As if I'd actually say that.

• A very small spider descended from the ceiling on an invisible thread. Nathan and I blew it back and forth a few times before killing it. Playing catch with miniscule spiders? New favorite game. 

• It's been gloomy or raining all day. I really enjoy these kinds of days once in a while, mostly because the sky becomes this lovely grey color, and all the tree branches are outlined so strikingly against it in black. Also, rain = mud = fun. 

-_-

sometimes, when i'm tired, i put my clothes on backwards.
and then i feel really dumb.

Cows

Emmie mentioned yesterday that I had sent her a really long sentence about cows once, so I went through my email to find it today.

The results of my search (with a few minor grammar corrections):

Now, as I am to write the longest sentence I can possibly craft regarding the subject of certain animals of the bovine family--namely, cows--it will no doubt have some mention of every characteristic I can think of that is unique to (or not necessarily unique to; it is quite acceptable for animals of different species to share certain aspects with each other, such as the presence of teeth, skin, and coloring, as it in no way proclaims them as exactly the same species) these large-eyed, generally mild creatures: large eyes naturally being one of these characteristics, cows are also found to have horns on occasion (usually males possess these, though in certain varieties females may have them as well), are large in bulk when full-grown, have split hooves, come in a wealth of different colors--including brown, black, white, tan, and the classic black-and-white--and quite possibly their most well-known feature: the ability of the females to produce, with relative regularity, a white creamy substance known as milk, originally intended for the nutrition of their own offspring, but in modern times harvested widely for human consumption.

  
[I now wonder why I spent all the effort it must have taken to write that.]

Zombie Attack Survival Manual

Method #1: Follow what the mathematicians say.  “Hit hard and hit often.”

Method #2: Follow what the CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response Zombie Apocalypse Manual says. (Basically, prepare as you would for any natural disaster.)

Method #3: Obtain your own chainsaw and be an awesome hero.

Method #4: Pretend that the zombies outside aren't real and continue to kill the virtual zombies in your zombie attack game.

Method #5: Shuffle.

and then the winter came...

I love this game.

Golden Birthdayyyyy

I was actually awake (though lying in bed) when the day turned from the 14th to the 15th.
At 11:58 or so, I had just randomly--and I mean really randomly--remembered the whole beer-can-in-British-accent vs. bacon-in-Jamaican-accent thing, so by the time 12:00am rolled around, I was lying there whispering "beer can/bacon" to myself and giggling.

What an idiot I can be sometimes.
Do I even deserve to be fifteen?

I guess, in the grand scheme of things, I don't even deserve to be alive at all.

So thank you, God, for giving me these fifteen years of life. I hope to serve you well in this sixteenth, and may my life glorify you as long as I have breath. 




(MOM: wailing softly. WAaaaahahhaaaaaaaaaa you're fifteen don't grow up I don't like iiiitttttt waaahahhaaa)

Self-Advertising

From my Chinese course, as we learn how to compare three or more objects:

Later, in a quiz:

"Which is a superlative sentence?"
- 中文很有趣。(Chinese is interesting.)
- 中文比英文更有趣。(Chinese is more interesting than English.)
- 中文是所有语言中最有趣。(Chinese is the most interesting out of all the languages.)

Absurdedly Paradoxical Pieces

These things. I forgot they existed. Then I looked through my Google Docs again, and I found a compilation of them by various authors, myself largely included. What are they? I don't even really know.
The absurdedly paradoxical piece, or the app, was a form of writing that was pioneered by my friend Asher quite a while ago, then taken over by my other friend Bethany and me and developed from there. Basically they were long paragraphs of carefully-crafted nonsense--as in, the sentences made sense grammatically, but only grammatically. Other than that, the definition is very fluid. Much of the time there were not many paradoxes within them at all (though perhaps some oxymorons), and the only thing absurd about mine is how proud I was of them.
Here is a sample of one of my apps:

"But does two plus two truly equal four? Think about it: put a cloud and a ninja together with a fairy and a rainbow (that's two plus two) and what do you get? Only the fairy, which is one, because the cloud could not dance, the ninja could not ripple, and the rainbow could not sing. Therefore, two plus two equals nine."

I am not sure so much about Bethany's, but almost every sentence in each of my apps was deeply symbolic, its surface-content linked back to the real content by about three or four stops on the thought-train so that only I could know what I was writing about. It was totally brilliant, or at least I thought it was. The problem is that now I can't remember half the things I meant to say, and my own words confuse me.
Anyway, my own path of developing apps turned into a strange method of journalling my thoughts and feelings--cryptic narrative poetic prose, of sorts. I will share one of my later apps with you: one that was inspired by something I don't quite remember, that is kind of prettily written (and slightly emo), and that certainly mixes fiction with my real sentiments. The only part I fully understand is the ending, and I do like the ending.

The flaming red mingled with deep blue was crinkled, deformed in my hands, stiff and stubborn in its misshapen state, the yarn limp and torn across my shaking arm. The firm border was gone, leaving frail white cardboard folded, showing jaggedly beneath the ragged, frayed cloth.
It got wet. Why? It rained. Why?
You never wore it much, anyway.
What does that matter? What does that have to do with my friend who flew across the world and brought that back for me? And so I lowered my head, trembling upon my knees, and wept, for the old memories now tinged with grief, for the death of any new ones before they happened.
Then I looked inside, and wondered, where am I going? Tears dropped from my eyes, stars beneath the rain, burning on their paths down my face, leaving streaks of fire. Were the spirits free? The answer is blowing through the golden meadows, a tossing ocean of melody within my dark, dark hair. Shall I run, or wait, so I may fly? My wings are broken because I tried to catch you--I implore you, don't speak of your shattered dreams to me. Don't you know I know, and hurt for it? I wonder why I wonder and wander, everywhere, nowhere, knowing but never speaking. And I wished I could turn to liquid, my movements flowing, fluid, a dancing river leaping over rocks and trees. Why?
Words are beautiful, but only because of the meaning they contain. And they can only hold so much. So I found another way to show what I meant, but then I saw those were words, too, and wept again, because what I want to say I cannot say nor show. Only see. But how can I see it if I cannot say what it is, to tell you? And so the years went by, and the mountains were swept to the sea, crumbling dust tumbling over the dry, dry sand. My wings were still broken, never healing, the pain never leaving.
Who could hold me gently enough to keep me, to bring me back to life, to show me beauty greater than words?
The One, He picked me up, filling the hole in my heart, and said to me, you're not guilty anymore. No more filth clings to you. I have healed you; your brokenness is gone. I set you free, you are no longer captive. You will find the greatest beauty in my love and new life in my death.
Never forget. Now you are Mine, and I will never let you fall from my gentle hand.
I wept the third time, for joy and beauty and all things good, for they came from Him, and I am His. My wings will grow back soon.
Until then I can run like the river, all the way home.