a mostly pointless list of mostly pointless superpowers written by a mostly pointless girl with a mostly pointless major and mostly pointless blue eyes that cry mostly pointless tears when she's mostly pointlessly sad

by Erin Macdonald

September 29, 2014

• the ability to make water lukewarm
• the ability to gain weight at above average speed (but you have to do that whole diet and exercise crap to get rid of it)
• the ability to punch really hard but really slowly
• the ability to run in slow motion
• the ability to turn anything into a tv remote (but you can't change it back)
• the ability to doggy paddle twice as quickly
• the ability to move at the speed of light (but only when you're already in space. good luck finding a rocketship. if draco couldn't find one, neither can you. no pigfarts for you. pff)
• the ability to screenshot just by blinking
• the ability to fall asleep exactly 38 minutes after you go to bed
• the ability to eat two chocolate cakes in the space of an hour
• the ability to insert punctuation into other people's texts
• the ability to attract baseballs with your face
• the ability to name that actor in that movie without consulting imdb
• the ability to turn any noodles into top ramen
• the ability to make green things orange
• the ability to be open about things
• the ability to fall in love
• the ability to not care about getting hurt
• the ability to run away from feelings
• the ability to make leopard print into cheetah print
• the ability to make a really successful baking soda and vinegar volcano
• the ability to make cardboard into printer paper
• the ability to ask the supposedly nonexistent "stupid question"
• the ability to finish half of the things you start
• like this list

--erin

she's got boney demons

by Sam Durrant

October 5, 2014

She wakes up with a messy load of hair but he never really

cared enough to ask her the time of day.

Maybe that would have saved her.

And she stretches herself out on the drying rack only when

she's feeling low.

Today, when God came knocking, she was too busy face down

counting the fibers in the carpet.

And chasing love more than she ever chased herself.

He left her cardboard box of potential at the doorstep but

potential weighs so much that she blew it into the breeze

without a second thought.

And burned the box without regret.

The stars could glitter her name and worlds could explode into

fire

but she won't know

She's gone blind to beauty that's not glass and numb to

anything that doesn't touch her tongue.

Every day, she plunges her hand down her throat to pull out

pieces of her lungs

she's barely breathing

but lungs take up so much space.

She's cement, she's plaster.

With bones too heavy and frigid and fragile.

She sleeps with mousetraps at her feet and wire wrapped

monitors on her once heavy heart

Just to make sure it's still there.

She's buried awake, but not alive.

She's been dead for a long time now.

People just don't know because she's still breathing.

Sleeping with skeletons and dirty, cracked fingernails.

She's unsatisfied by food

and just hungry for the flawless empty

She doesn't want to be human, she wants to be art.

Pretty and untouchable.

Empty but admired.

Dead but desirable.

Because there are some of us that would rather be beautiful

than alive.

Just as long as he starts to notice her across the hall.

my mind speaks louder

by Caroline Owens
November 23, 2014

my mom is making a pie,
my brother is asking for money,
my dad is sleeping on the couch,
and my sister is torturing the dog.

so this is a letter from my heart
because my mind is too busy.

live in the moment and don't be afraid
stop, everyone's watching

live like you're dying tomorrow
you're not, so don't change anything

travel the world
ha, you don't have money

spend time with your family, pretty soon you'll be moved out
you can't go a couple days without hanging out, good try

you're perfect the way you are
you can be better, you can look better

it's what's on the inside that counts
no one cares about who you are

the pie's done,
my brother got the money.
the dog got away,
and my sister woke up my dad.

my mind takes over.

they say follow your heart,

but my mind speaks louder.

xoxo caroline

Finding Yourself Is the Messiest Thing In The World

by Jess
May 29, 2014

We're so close to what we wanted, but never farther from what we needed.

"Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off a list."

And that was it. The most useful thing I had heard all year in English 11 Honors.

It almost made the class worth it.

Don't get me wrong, I love English.(Shout out to Mr. Lassen for forever ruining my life, and possibly

saving it at the same time.)

But maybe the subject became more of an agenda then a passion this year.

(Oh and I hate "Beowulf". So damn much.)

Just add it to the pile of things to burn, forever walking the halls for inspiration.

Hands on sweater, they shake less.

I can't put them in my pockets, they're too full of reminders that people call trash.

I'll unload them tonight after prayers I'm not longer sure I'm worthy of because I'm a sinner who doesn't

exactly want to stop, even though I'm still praying in bathroom stalls.

So be it.

Gripping goodbye letters I never sent because I was never very sentimental, unless it comes to Hallmark

movies. (And yes, I am aware they are terrible.)

Shaky fingers and flickering lights as I sort through memories and lint.

Deep breaths.

1 for the time I found poetry.

2 for the times it found me.

3 for the time I realized it's a verb, not a noun. And I started acting.

4 for four letter words. I used a lot more of those this year. No regrets.

5 for five fingers, two hands. He managed to kiss every one of them, and leave my soul untouched. Gold stars.

for the both of us.

6 for my first I love you.

7 for the half a million after. (Don't you wish you would have said it out loud?)

8 for the first time I crashed my car.

9 for microwave popcorn. (Just because.)

10 for the songs that saved us, and for lyrics and melodies that put anything I've ever penned to shame. I

don't mind it.

11 for the times all I wanted in the world was for him to be okay.

12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 for the times I knew he wasn't.

And 17 for everything broken.

Nothing fits into 13's and 3's like it used to.

And 17's become something spiritual.

This year, all anyone can see I've gained is pockets full of lint.

I've picked up so many colors this year, but to the naked eye they all just mix together and the only thing

people see of me is black.

And I refuse to ask if they don't mind the color on me.

But maybe I'm better off for that, because whenever people are asked what they would do with their lives if

money wasn't an issue, almost all of them say "Write."

Someone ask Hemingway if he was happy, because none of this is inspiration, it's just honesty.

And I think I've found something worth bleeding for.

Or at least collecting lint over.

Leave me here, go off with your coins clogging up your pens.

Forever laughing at my lint.

And in the end, if all I'm left with is memories, pencils, paper, and only lint to fill my pockets,

So be it.

i never doubt the angels

by Navy Skye
December 18, 2014

i remember the first night i stayed up past
midnight. i was on msn instant messaging a boy
with light brown hair and had a wardrobe of only
abercrombie t shirts

he ended up liking my best friend.
my 6th grade heart got a little smaller the day
i saw them hugging at that basketball game and i
remember thinking "well maybe i'm not very
pretty."

i also remember questioning if my best friend
was really my best friend.

it turned out she wasn't.

she's on the cheer team now if you're wondering
and when she passes me in the hallway she
doesn't even see me.

i remember the gap between my two front teeth
and i remember how i loved it.
i loved it until she told me it was ugly. and
that "boys aren't going to like you with teeth
like that."

the next morning i begged my mom for braces.
ther'es no gap between my teeth anymore but
my tongue still tries to find the space that's
no longer there.

i think I'll miss that gap for the rest of my
life.
the teeth that were innocent
the teeth that didn't let any swear words escape
from them.

i remember when my mom threw my dad's shoe at
him.
it barely missed his head.
she told me she didn't mean to almost hit his
head
but my 8 year old eyes were smarter than that.

i remember her throwing all of his clothes in
the driveway and she screamed at him to never
come back.
he picked up most of the items and got into his
white truck.
he forgot to pick up his old green bay packers
sweatshirt though so i ran out onto the icy
driveway barefoot and picked it up because i
didn't want the neighbors to see it there.

i slept in it that night.
i cried myself to sleep ad sucked the sleeves
of that sweatshirt because that's what i do when
i'm nervous.
i didn't think my daddy would be coming back
again

he did.
although some days i wish he wouldn't have
because they still fight weekly
and the words that they scream at each other
have slowly made me deaf
and they make me not believe in love.

i remember my second grade teacher.
the one who told me i should become a teacher.

i remember the day i was crying because i hated
so badly that i was so shy.
my grandma looked at me and said "being shy is
beautiful, you don't need to be the center of
attention, you know how to listen. and you may
not realize it now, but listening will always be
more important than talking."

i remember the day my dad told me butterfly
kisses will always be our song.

i remember the day my brother stopped breathing.
i remember how my voice shook when i called 911.
and i remember that day i realized just how
important life really is.

i remember the first time you kissed me. i ran
to my room and i lied on the floor feeling my
stomach because i didn't know that so many
butterflies could appear in there at one moment.

i remember the last time you really kissed me.
like you knew it would be the last time.
i wish i would have known it was going to be the
last time my lips would be pressed against
yours.

because i would have kept you in that room for
hours.

i remember sitting in my closet wishing i was
dead
i never attempted anything
but i remember thinking how much i wished i was
in heaven
i remember getting a text from a girl i barely
even knew
saying how amazing i was

and how after i read that text i knew angels
were watching over me

i think about all the angels up there all the
time and i know they are watching me

and watching us.

some days i doubt god

but then i think of the angels


and how i have never doubted the angels

The Perfect Ending

by Nelson
August 8, 2014

     

I want the last line of this poem to open every window in this joint. I want it to roll up
everybody's sleeves and reveal all of your tattoos.

I want the last line to make you cold.

Make you feel something. Make you wonder for the rest of the night.
For the rest of your life.

I want the last line of this poem to make you fall in love with me.

I've spent all summer thinking about what it will be. I thought about
WRITING IT IN ALL CAPS. Writing it in a different font. Writing it in
blood. I thought about writing it in Latin to see who would bother
translating it. "Sed mutata sententia."

I thought about putting it in a bottle and throwing it into the
ocean. Or shooting it up into space. Or writing it on a 300-foot
banner and flying it across the wasatch front on a Saturday
afternoon.

I just want you to see it.

I want the last line to be something you've never seen before. I want
it to be new, creative, innovative. It should cut edges and burn
boundaries.

But I want your heart to recognize it. That long lost love. That girl
who grew up across the street. A sort of cardiac deja vu.

I want your heart to come up to my heart after the show and be like,
"Hey. Um. So, uh, I was wondering if you wanted to, uh, um. I don't
know. Never mind."

I want the last line to make you jealous.

I want you to Google it because you think I stole it.

I want it to be so beautiful that it belongs in a different poem.

It could be your last meal request. It could be my last will and testament. I
want it to feel like the last line either of you will ever hear.

I want the last line to harden your brain and make your heart soggy.
I want your arteries to look like water balloons after I turn up the
faucet full blast.

I want it to kill everyone in this room.

I want the last line to be a loaded handgun on a coffee table. A bottle of poison in an
unlocked cabinet. the plug that your wife wants to leave in, but I hold it in my hand.

Someone call the paramedics, please, because this poem is about to
end.

Call the audience's next of kin, get their loved ones on the phone
and break the bad news. Order the floral arrangements and cue up the
sad music. Notify the 5 o'clock news, because there's about to be a
massacre.

"Not another mass killing," they'll say. "They were all so young,"
they'll say. "What is wrong with this country?" #prayforenliten

The media will debate whether or not to talk about me. On one hand,
they'll want to focus on all o you: the victims. But they'll
definitely want to know how I could do something like this. And I
guess this is the answer:

I just wanted to bring language back from the dead.

I wanted the last line of this poem to break your heart.

The kind of heartbreak that makes you write your own poem.

Reminiscing

by Feathers on Fish
May 11, 2014

I remember when I thought I could draw because I could draw the same thing over again. I remember how every time i dew it it's beauty deteriorated.

I remember how for seven years of my life books and a blanket were all I needed. I remember the week I stopped reading and found a friend, I never finished the book.

I remember the color Orange and how it helped me out of depression so skillfully that no one ever knew I was sad. I remember how people asked me if I was okay when I wasn't wearing Orange.

I remember Garrett asking me what I would do when I stopped liking the color. I remember how I heard him voice this question in my head for a month. I remember how I haven't worn orange in two weeks and no one has commented.

I remember how shy I was and how home was never the place I would go to after school. I remember Jimmy and how after three years of friendship ended with a walk home from the school bus.

I remember when I ran from home because my brother went too far with a prank. I remember how most of the images of my neighborhood, that I remember, come from that night.

I remember chasing my sister in my underwear because that same brother told me to. I remember it was fun.

I remember how me and that sister were never very close. I remember how she only tried to fix the problem when she was to go to Alabama for 18 months.

I remember that three weeks ago I was 18. I remember thinking "What have I done to get to this point in my life?" I remember that the answer was nothing.

I remember trying to place those emotions in a poem. I remember not yet finishing it because feelings were too strong. I remember the friend that helped me through those emotions.

I remember being on ADD meds since I was 7 and how I didn't feel emotions until half-way through my 18th year.

I remember stopping my ADD meds almost 8 months ago. I remember the days in those nine years that I didn't take the pill.

I remember how my family thought unmedicated me was the enemy. I remember on those days I felt free.

I remember running freely after a frog. I remember running in mud in flip-flops and having them stick in the mud, and break. I remember not catching the frog.

I remember that I have always worn out shoes in four months. I remember how my shoes just ripped after three weeks.

I remember becoming great friends with anybody in two weeks.I remember fading away from them after three months.

I remember some happy things too. I remember writing this with motives of sadness.

-Joshua Salmond (Feathers On Fish)

People get so lost at this damn school.

by Jane Addams

November 2, 2014

there are 2500 students and only a cupful of care to go around

Death isn't the popular cheerleader.

Death isn't the Valedictorian.

Death is not the kid making up 28 attendance schools to graduate.

Death has never won a trophy.

Death is lonely but not necessarily alone.

Death gets C's on her report card and has a decent relationship with her family.

Death is average and Death is always there but no one wants to pay attention because

Death is blinding

and harsh

and real.

We cringe from real. Real makes us hide under our beds with a plastic slingshot; it makes us cower
and pray that if we can just keep our eyes closed for long enough it will go away.
But Death doesn't go away even if you squeeze your eyes so tightly that the black turns to red
and you can feel the veins in your eyes.
Death is omnipresent.
But Death is always ignored.
Death leaves a trail.

Death opens her mouth but no one is around to listen because everyone else is too busy with
those parading about in their Grim Reaper costumes-pretending to understand but never really
knowing because they were gone the day we handed out the portions of care allotted to this
school.

Death wants to be acknowledged.
Maybe if we could pay attention to death before she strikes she would leave us alone.
Death smears her lips with blood and asks-Am I pretty yet?
Death has never been accepted but Death doesn't understand because she never pretended to be
anything other than what she is. She doesn't wear the beautiful mask that Life does; drawing you
in with he allure of perfection.
Death has never made an empty promise unlike her boyfriend, Life. But Life and Death had a
rough break up and now they're fighting over the children. Death is always taking them too early,
forcing Life to buy tiny caskets and daisies because their little girl never reached the fifth grade
and daises were always her favorite. But life is playing the same dirty game, holding on with both
hands far too long resulting in nothing but pain and suffering and deterioration. Nothing is worse
than getting caught in the crossfire of your bickering parents.

So this is it.
She is Death and she is coming.
This is Life and we are here.

Love is Plagarism

by Edward Abbey
September 21 2014

Once my English teacher told me plagiarism was using three or more words that weren't your own and taking credit for them. She said she'd rip up my paper and give me a zero if I ever did such a thing. But I wanted to know how those three words felt. I wanted to write them.
The three words grandparents know so well, and children know better.
The words us teens are trying to remember.
So I stole them.
I stole them from the asphalt skimmed knees and the asphalt skimmed hearts.
From the playground kids kissing tree,
and kisses only made possible thanks to supplemented oxygen.
Because when I asked him how he felt Grandpa responded, "despite the constant flow of O2 from the tank by my side, she still gives me reasons to forget to breathe."

So when you ripped up the paper I gave you with the words "I love you" written on it, I only hope it was a result of my plagiarism.

Love is plagiarism, but I stole it for you.

Why Your Blog is my Favorite Thing on the Internet

by Addy Baird
March 3, 2014

Blogs are the eighth wonder of the world. I've been blogging since mid-2007 --this is like, my fourth blog (and no, the first two no longer exist, so don't go looking). I feel like the height of blogging was sometime during my sophomore year of high school. Everyone had a blog. Everyone was a poet. Everyone's life was a drama. Ever since early 2011, I've been sure that blogging was on the out and out. I blame Twitter--I think that's what did it for me, at least. I blog less now than I ever have in all my years of blogging. 140 characters makes things wasy.

The millennial generation gets a lot of flack for being self-involved and overly dramatic and lazy. Again, I blame Twitter. 140 characters makes broadcasting the drama of your existence to throngs of followers easy. Don't get me wrong--I love Twitter. It's my social media of choice. Validating my narcissism in only 140 characters and I don't even have to leave my bed? Yes please. I am, evidently, the poster child of the millennial generation. Please love me.

But here's the deal, on Twitter, there's a tendency, as with all social media (and this is something I incessantly blog about, apparently) to make your life look beautiful and great, and even when there are those horribly sad and dramatic tweets, they're this tactic of being like, "My life is complicated and interesting just like I am a complicated and interesting human being." But blogs are a whole 'nother story.

Right as I thought blogs were dying once and for all, they started to come back. Everyone's on Tumblr or Blogspot or Wordpress, and you can usually find the link to their personal blog in their Twitter bio. Blogs are back, and they're here to stay. I swear to you, every single day I see someone new tweet something about "I got a blog!!! Go follow it and see the adventures of my life!" But here's where things sort of go awry: These blogs seem to be less life-glorifying and more real-live honesty. I know it's true for me, at least. I would like you people to look at my Instagram and be like, "Ah, she's so clever and cool and wise," and I make sure that the only things you see there are things that wouldn't ever make you think anything differntly, but here? On the blog? Shiz gets real. I'm scared of the dark. I feel lonely and lost a lot. I don't do my hair. I wear sweats.

You people all have these blogs where instead of trying to be funny or look pretty or sound cool, you're sitting down and writing honestly about what it feels like to get your heart broken for the first time and what it feels like to graduate from high school or what it means to fall in love or how you feel about your best friends or why you're being angsty this week. It's amazing. Blogs, somehow, produce an honesty that I can't find anywhere else in the cyberworld. I mean, sure, we all still life-glorify and vie for attention, but blogs are different. They're special, and somewhere in between your pictures of your wedding and your vague, dramatic post about who-knows-what, two amazing things have happened:

1.) You have discovered that your feelings are valid, and
2.) I have started to genuinely care about your feelings, because I feel the same feelings.

And that's what I love about blogs. All of this crap the millennials get is, sure, in some way valid, but also it's kind of amazing. Sudden;y, we have this generation who is going, "My feelings are valid! My sadness is allowed! My joy should be celebrated!" and then I read your blog and go, "Hey, my feelings are valid, too! My joy should also be celebrated!" We're this amazing generation that really loves itself and then blogs give us this incredible outlet to broadcast that love, that validity and people read them and fell less alone because they feel those things, too.

Alan Cohen, who's the guy behind those Chicken Soup for the Soul books, said, "Wouldn't it be powerful if you fell in love with yourself so deeply that you would do just about anything if you knew it would make you happy? This is precisely how much life loves you and wants you to nurture yourself. The deeper you love yourself, the more the universe will affirm your worth. You can enjoy a lifelong love affair that brings you the richest fulfillment from the inside out." And he's totally right. Loving yourself, feeling that you are this valid, wonderful being is the number one way to be fulfilled and blogs are this cool, weird, wonderful step in that direction!

So, no: I don't think you're all amazing writers, no offense. And I don't expect all of you to think I'm an amazing writer, either (even though I'd like you to think I am because again, I'm the millennial generation poster child and also because I'd like to make a living doing this (please buy my book someday)). But the point is, I LOVE YOUR MELODRAMATIC BLOGS. I LOVE YOUR OUTFIT OF THE DAY BLOGS. I LOVE YOUR LIFE ADVENTURES BLOGS. They matter to me so much. Your feelings are valid and I'm just so obsessed with all of you for discovering that because I think that it's just a healthy and generally awesome thing to discover.

So keep bloggin', babes. You're all the coolest.

"I like the feeling of words doing as they want to do and as they have to do."
Gertrude Stein
XOXOXO x infinity,
Addy

Food is Love

by Caroline Owens
September 21

Waffle LUV got it right.

I can taste the love, literally.

I hope to one day find someone that makes me as happy as I am when I see the waiter bringing me my food.

There is no greater joy in life, at least not that I've experienced, than going to your favorite restaurant for the first time in months.

People are always grumpy when they haven't eaten, I think that says it all.

Diets, they never work. People are unhappy because they are denied the simple pleasure of food.

Food is Love. If you don't know what love feels like, go to Cafe Rio and get a sweet pork burrito smothered in house ranch dressing. That is love, that is life.

yummmmmy

xoxo caroline

Introductions

Hi, my name is Charlie Bradbury.

I'm a thief. I'm insecure about the way I present myself to people around me, I'm afraid I come off as cold and intimidating when people first meet me. I'm scared of how my life will turn out so I constantly reject the world. I've stolen (#$tolen from writersparis.blogspot.com) blog posts that I think are very significant and touch my soul in a way I never thought would happen. Since these people express it so much better than I can, why not share it here. By doing this I will have my own personalized metaphorical blog post bookshelf. I will be posting the date that the blog post was originally posted, the author of the blog, the text of the post and the pictures incorporated into that post.

Enjoy your stay here.