I'm scared of the possibilities and of the unknown

Charlotte Rose
October 26, 2014

Fear controls me.
Making me who I am
And who I'm not.
But I can't hate that even though I don't like writing it. Because it's one
of the elements that has made up the parts of me that I am.

I'm afraid of being alone. Of losing my best friend.
I'm afraid of having kids Also not having kids.
I'm afraid of someone saying "I love you. I'm just not
in love with you anymore."

I'm afraid of small talk because I'd rather just skip to the part where
you tell me your life is not easy and neither is mine and sure the
weather is important sort of but your feelings are of more worth to
me. I'm afraid of them not liking me, because I'm too hard on myself to
be great 25/8 and I don't want to disappoint you. Because I'm also
afraid of what that face looks like. I'm afraid of confrontation
and fighting. I don't want to lose you.

I'm afraid of making decisions and change. Because with both of those
things I have only a 50% chance of something good going right. And all
my life they've taught me 50/100 was failing.

It sounds silly and so many can't understand. But...
I'm afraid of not making enough memories. Of not "living life" enough or
fully because they just keep telling me life goes by so fast, and one day
you'll wake up and you've lived your whole life. And that scares me, I
don't want to look back and realize I lived the same year 75 times.

And contrary to what i previously just said, in that life. I'm afraid of
the start of things and I'm afraid of the end of things.
(I know please don't laugh, I'm very much indeed a difficult case)
Afraid of graduating because that's the end of something. And afraid of
college/life after high school because that's the start of something.

   BECAUSE:   hellos take courage and so do goodbyes.

And honey please do not tell me fear is just a feeling and I can get over it. Indeed I
should accept the fact that there is both beautiful and terrible things in this world.
but I'm fearful of the light and the dark. Because I can't get myself to trust the
unknown.

So maybe I'm lacking everything in bravery. But i checked my report card in the
subject of "FEAR"
I have an A.





I hope to have an A in bravery too....


someday.

I'M A PEACH

suzy e.
April 6, 2014

There's a Pit in my stomach that no one wants to deal with.

I'm not sure if its there because I only have 5 days to finish that online PE class that's required for me to graduate,

Or if it's the fact that I might not graduate.

Or it's there because I'm probably going to graduate.

It's also very possible that its there because I'm worried about all the attendance schools I have to go to because I hate going to school.

But I only went to half a class yesterday.

    So The Pit must not be that important if all it takes is two            girls, one red jeep, and thirteen books to make me forget               that it was even there.



stay gold,
(and peachy)
suzy e.

Writing to Save Yourself

by Soap
April 6, 2014

Saturday night, I got in a fight with my parents. The screaming match was more than I could handle
and memories memories memories were pushing to the forefront of my eyelids. I slipped into my
room and quickly realized the futility of tears, so I dug under the pile of clothes that had become a
carpet of their own. And I found my wallet. And I left.

I still don't know why I took my wallet.

True to form, they hide the car keys before I had a chance to take them. I walked for a directionless
hour along SR-92 heading west. And I was sobbing walking along the curb. Not one car stopped. Not
even the ones screaming music from inside the rolled up windows. I laughed. Why did I think cars
would stop for a teenager walking alone in the dark? I'm not celebrity.

My shirt was thin, and my hands were cold. And I called but you didn't answer. You didn't call back.
You were probably making out with your girlfriend. I just wanted to ask if you could drop off a
sweatshirt, preferably with some pockets. Or ask if you could help me find a way to sneak into the
church because I hate asking to spend the night.

The headlights were starting to make me self-conscious.

And i thought about how I should have taken a shower before I started this pilgrimage because my
hair was sticking up weird.
I laughed because teenagers think they are significant.
But that only made me cry harder.

And I know you can't freeze to death in forty degree weather. But if the grass is wet, and your
sleeves are short, you just might.

And I know that you will never know what it is like to have to police called to your own house to
assess property damage from punching a hole in your own wall.

Or what it is like to have the police call your cell phone.

And I know, I know. The breakthrough is finding about that connection that's more than brushing
fingertips. The breakthrough is reading a raw, bitter post about love when you're feeling raw and bitter
yourself. That breakthrough is writing about your sloppy first kiss and getting ten comments about
your peers' sloppy first kisses. Writing about LDS general conference that I did not watch. Writing
about praying and disappointing two sets of parents.

But sometimes writing is about talking to the computer screen so you don't punch another hole in the
wall.

See I want to punch another hole in the wall, but I wrote this instead. Now I'm jogging instead of
sprinting. Now my fingers are moving a little faster than when they look for channels on the telly.
Now my breaths are a little less jagged and sharp. The music of my heartbeat is a little more soft
and a little more even. Like the intro of a ballad.

I didn't write this for you. I wrote this for my heart. She needed a little breathing room and space to
talk.

Yellow.

pleasefindmehere
March 23, 2014

For all this talk of wanting to be found, there are points in my life when I desperately

want to get lost.

And Nelson, you told me not to write a post about death in light of what's happened. But 

Nelson, I just can't get it off of my mind. Maybe I have to write in order to gather my

thoughts. To sort them into nice, neat little categories before I can push them aside to

the remote corners of my brain. But these categories are hard to label. The taste of

charcoal. The smell of the yellow walls. Incoherent. Asking for water. Asking for water.

Throwing up. Looking for love on the whiteboard because of the nurses' promises, and

staring at the <3 for what it was instead of a pain management goal.

Because I was the Titanic and Monday was just another unassuming iceberg floating

along in the Atlantic.

What came first? Learning the "F word" or forgetting how to share? Earning my stripes

or my stretch marks? Screwing boys or scaring you shitless? I didn't start swearing

because I have a small vocabulary. I started swearing because I have a large vocabulary,

and swear words are an additional ten.

Eyes don't tell you near as much about a person as their skin. How much they're

showing and how much they're not showing. And my pants kept slipping down and my

gown slid off my shoulders, but I was too sick to care.

Yellow was the color of my hospital room. Yellow was the color they painted the walls in

the name of no more suicide attempts. The color of the bins at UNI. The hat. The suicide

note I should have written. Trapped.

White was the color of the flowers my grandparents sent. The color of my face. The

color of the Tylenol.

Green was the color my grandparents wore when they flew from Colorado to visit me

for my birthday. That night they told me they would love me no matter what. That night

my grandma hushed my grandpa for talking too loud in "a place like this." The color of

the courtyard, barred in. Birthday money.

Blue. The bruising from the IV's. The scrubs. Waking up in the hospital on my

eighteenth birthday.

Pink was the color of the bins at Primary Children's. The first suicide note I wrote. The

shirt my aunt sent.

Black was the color of the charcoal. The color of the pills rising to the surface. The color

of the druggies' words they spit. Drug references, suicide references.

God's given me a second chance. But all I can think about is what I've done with the first

chance. Hope was the water before the fall. The shout before the break. God tells me to

marry the light, but the darkness is still so alluring. Even though I've learned Death's a

bitch when she gets close. She's seductive as hell from a distance, and when she's got

you in a committed relationship with no way out, she takes off her makeup, she takes

off her heels, she forgets. She forgets you only fell for her because you were chasing a 

mirage. Her lips bruise your throat with the faintest touch.

I can't tell you a lot about what Death is, but I can tell you a lot about what Death is not.

Death is not kind. Death is not a peaceful way to go. Death is not yellow, but I learned

she is not all black either. Death is not feminine with her hands wrapped delicately

around your throat, but Death is definitely a woman. Death is not satisfied by a suicide

attempt.

I don't know a lot of things. I don't know why I'm waiting for God's number to appear on

my contact list. I don't know why Warren Buffet keeps offering his billion dollars when

he knows no one will submit the perfect draw. I don't know why we have two hearts or

why one heart beats out of my chest in response to my other heart or why we cry over

spilt milk. I don't know why I keep asking bones questions expecting an answer or why

they answer in question format. I don't know why the sky is blue or why the sun is

yellow or why I see colors instead of black and white. I don't know why you're stuck in

my dreams and I don't know why I wake up wishing you would get the fuck out of my

head. Because they're such pleasant nightmares.

And the world was ending, and no one cared. And we found indifference one blank stare

at a time. But I couldn't remove my doubts far enough from my mind to achieve the

same blank stare. But I tried.

Maybe everything I write is meant to be depressing. Maybe those neon painted

fingernails are really stars and every time she pounds the keyboard, she's making her

world go round. She's interspersing sex and dying with the sounds of laughter and she

doesn't know any other way to survive. Maybe she likes to be surprised by her smile.

Maybe  she likes to be surprised at the little things.

And swallowing those pills still didn't teach her who would show up at her funeral.

The Elephant in the Room

by Harold Miner
April 5, 2014

I didn't get into this to become the enemy. The villain. The bad guy. I never wanted it to be them vs. me. Kryptonite isn't cheap, and I'm not even in the market anyway.

I like teenagers. If I start hating them, I probably shouldn't be a teacher.

But look at me. Telling these young whippersnappers to get off my lawn. Sitting in this computer lab shushing kids like a librarian stereotype.

Shhhhhhhhhh.

Keep it down.

Shhhhhhhhhh.

I effin' hate this.

It's spring break in 20 minutes and I'm asking them to focus.

I remember being 15. I hated school, I hated teachers, I hated adults. It was YOLO before Drake could even walk. It was trending before hashtags. I just wanted to have fun. No sir, I don't have a hall pass. Yes, sir, I'll go back to class. No, ma'am, I don't know where that came from. Yes, ma'am, I'm sorry.

Now look at me.

The enemy.

Maybe I'm just bitter. Maybe I'm taking my baldness out on them. My sore ankle. My lost adolescence.

There's an elephant in this room. They call him The Future. He's wearing sunglasses and knows everything. He's the coolest kid in the neighborhood, with the whitest teeth, but everyone's too intimidated to look him in the eye.

We all know he's there, but I'm the only one who's taking him seriously. These kids are too busy giggling and No way, are you serious? and Shut up and Ha ha hee hee ha ha hee.

This is the worst flirting I've ever seen.

They pretend like they don't see him there, staring at them. You know how teenagers are. Like they're all preforming and the cameras just started rolling. We may as well be in the stands of a football game on a Friday night and the boy we like is sitting right behind us.

I'm not saying I wish I was them. Because I don't. When I was 15, Puberty was just a monster under the bed. So those weren't the glory days for me.

Maybe I'm just waiting for the bell to ring too.

we're breathing we're feeling we're all dying but also living. what?

by Sky Trillion
June 23, 2014

i am pam you can be my jim and we'll be PB&J.
and i've been clawing the air grasping for any kind of word..any words.
i just want to remember feeling the words in the front of my forehead
tap tap tapping burning burning but you can't be numb if you want to feel
words. #feelingishealing hashtag campaign feel again 2014.
my body hurts
i'm writing and writing but it means nothing and nothing and will you
love me now that i have a job and am making money will you love me now
that i'm having my 3 meals-i'm really trying. i'm not doing well at my 3
snacks but i'm making progress.
they said if you feel good and are on track and are ready to move on 3
times a day and you are angry and confused and stormy and drowning and
ready to never move on ever 5 times a day, this is what recovery is.
that is progress. deep breaths, this is progress. and i don't
want to be sent home from colletch.
there's no limit to the amount of times you can be healed
no limit.
we were the only two at the dance so of course we slow danced and he
tried to dip me so many times and i just couldn't do it i couldn't let
him and i guess that's physical evidence of my trust issues.
my internal storm doesn't just take a break because i'm with friends or
at work or at school or something. that's hard.
you called from the airport and we breathed our plans to travel the world
together and adventurize and you asked me to not get married while you're
gone and you said te quiero which i guess means "i love you" in spanish
but directly translated it means "i want you" or "you i want" and that
freaks me out but actually te quiero tambien.
but do i believe you?
The Fault in our Stars is not a chick flick it's a real life flick gosh
dangit!

thats a rap

by hannah madsen
August 10, 2014


I've been doing a lot of online shopping okay??????

I've been trying to get back in touch with my roots but I think I've dyed them too much

This is about sharing a couch with someone at an old friends house and how it felt like home. This is about home. This is about having eggs for breakfast every morning and trying not to step on eggshells. Its about new hair cuts and how I only published two blog posts since school ended. It's not about trips to Vegas and its not about getting that summer beach bod and its certainly not about high school. Its about working and wearing pants and summer homework and people getting offended when you offer to take out their groceries. Its about finding out people have girlfriends and being to lazy to make this post into an actual thing. It's about last days of work that make you cry and last days of school that didn't and last days of summer that will. The break is over and the package is sealed. All wrapped up with plastic and packing peanuts and in a dingy old shoe box that should say FRAGILE. HANDLE WITH CARE. but it just says THIS SIDE UP and none of us even know where we're going. And we don't know what we'll be like when we get there. All we can do is hope the mail man doesn't drop us and that wherever we go the person who opens us up is gentle enough to put us back together.

And God laughed.

by Soap

April 5, 2014

I saw sorry again and again, but it's a word now rendered meaningless to my family due to the

accompanying lack of results.

And you can't be "good" at a diet, because that's called an eating disorder... and he's a monkey you

can't get off your back.

And we shoot bb's at the moon to spite God and God laughs.

God laughed when I got mono from kissing that night I sneaked out and wasn't supposed to.

He laughed when all of Utah county pretended to be Buddhist for a day just to attend a chalk festival.

And on his list of regrets is a missed opportunity to create a chalk festival to celebrate Christ's birth.

God laughs at karma.

When you punched the wall and broke your hand.

When that chick shaved her head. He got the joke.

God laughed when you bought pet mice for $3 apiece when you could catch them in the field across

the street for free.

And he cried when my sister asked me to rate my love for her on a scale from one to five, and I said

two. Even though it was a joke. It was a terrible joke.

God cried when he watched "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas," but he ridicules "The Titanic."

He turned his back from the Holocaust. Notice I said "from" instead of "on." He did not turn his back

on their suffering. He did not turn away because he is an apathetic God. But because he had to stop

himself from ending the world right then and there.

He cries when the teenage moms abandon their babies at the park, wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Because no matter how many babes he sees, they always remind him of one nearly two thousand

years ago with all their potential.

He cried when the girl who hadn't been raped lied about being raped and when the girl who had lied

and said she hadn't.

The room had a sink.

The sink was for washing.

The sink was white.

He spends half his time at the sink washing the ugly off of his hands.

I Empty My Mind on Saturdays

I love general conference but I didn't always. (Crazy huh)


I HATE that I work almost every weekend.

Especially this weekend


I used to by shy about religion but I'm not anymore.



I'm happier too.


I won't shove religion down your throat (because I hate those people) but I do mention it a lot.


You told me I was real the other night and you said I was allowed to like rap music AND Bon Iver.

I was allowed to wear t-shirts and button ups.

I was allowed to like photography and the gym.



You told me that I broke the "cool kid" stereotype. (Even though I'm not cool)


And I think that was the greatest compliment I ever received.


Jay Z-lost one will instantly change my mood.

Look it up.


I love classical instruments in hip hop.

I can't wait for the fault in our stars to come out in theaters.

Even though we agreed that they shouldn't look like siblings.

And her hair should be longer


I could listen to Kanyes verse on sanctified over and over and over and over…etc.


Why are my legs small?


Hell is a place where your gym shorts are staticky and there's nothing you can do about it.


Why are people ridiculed for going to the gym? Because it's not the popular thing to do? Or maybe it is?

I think a select few give everyone that goes to the gym a bad name.


That's lame.


If you only go to the gym to do curls and score chicks…stop.


You ain't scoring chicks player.


I wish I knew how to plat the piano.

I played guitar when I was younger but now I'm older.


I'm too young to grow up.

I can iron a shirt and do laundry but as much as I want I can't live on grilled hand and cheese.



I thank the big man upstairs everyday that I wasn't born with cankles.



I'm not one to judge but if you have cancels you might be picked last.


That being said I would take cankels for a fully functional pancreas any day.


I just saw an old man with a pony tail and a marijuana leaf on his shirt.
That's all.


Sometimes I say things thinking they're funny but really they're not.

I'm self-conscious of my legs.

Don't look at them.

There's a large list of people who I would like to punch square in the face.

I just pulled up the timer on my phone and it had been going for 23 hours…

Whoops.


If you don't appreciate Adele then that's messed up.


She might be the GOAT.


Or one of them at least.

Top 7

Childish Gambino is underrated


I could listen to Bon Iver all day.


I still don't know the correct way to say Bon Iver


Explosions in the Sky is my go-to blogging music.

I just realized how big of an impact my parents have had on who I am today.

I learned today that you really can't please everyone so I quit trying, and for the longest time I thought that 

made me insensitive but really it makes me mature.


I'm in the process of learning that it's useless to be mad at the past.

It's already happened so why waste that energy on something you can't change.

It really bugs me when my fingernails get too long


WHERE THE REAL HOMIES AT?



I hate "dubstep"


That isn't music.


I've learned more about myself in the past month then I have in 17 years.


Don't ask me how or what, just agree.


Your song is rouge valley by the wolves and the ravens and I don't know how long I can sit in this sauna 

because I'm getting sweaty and it's hard to hold my phone and no that wasn't some deep metaphor but I would

 like to watch the sunrise with you soon.



I'm going through growing pains but that's ok because when it's all said and done I'll be stronger.


Sauna: 1. Malcolm: 0


Cowlick: 1. Malcolm: 0



You're wasting precious time if you think about all the negative things in your life. There's no positive outcomes from negative thoughts.


Negativity: 0. Malcolm: 1

Secrets are for the lost soul.

by Suzy Bishop
April 5, 2014

The smoke billows in my face and I can't see.
It's not actually smoke, you know? It's a metaphor, there is a deeper
meaning.
There is always a deeper meaning.

I grind my teeth together in frustration because I like the way the

tension feels, and I like looking right into her eyes because I like the

way the tension Feels.

Someday, oh someday we will start our lives and I will have to watch your
life in pictures because we won't talk anymore. I already know that we
won't talk anymore.



You know how you go to the city so that you can feel like you are a part
of something different?
You and her and them, they are my city.

Something about the way that you move reminds me of songs that I listened
to last summer. A friendly reminder of the past, a nightmare of the
past.





I feel bad when I pick flowers because I just ruined a beautiful little
life just so i could put it behind my ear and in my hair. Decorating
myself. That's so selfish but I always do it. I pull and tear at its petals
like it's nothing. Why is destruction so easy?

I like the way blankets feel against my bare skin.



Have you ever been told that you have cute freckles? Because you have the
cutest freckles in the world and your freckles make me jealous.



I like the way houses look when they have a  lot of knickknacks. When you
look around the room, its like you're reading a child's book and there is
something about children books that bring you home.



My heart hurt the day I saw the cuts under your sleeve. I'm so sorry.




Sometimes, I just want to wonder.


-S.B.

the poem I can't explain

by Jackie O
April 6, 2014

They tell me to call our conversations 'prayers'
to enjoy every minutes of us because I can't do anything without you.
Every time I talk to you, though, it's through muffled tears with an anxious heart
and an overbearing need to push everything from my chest onto yours.


I've been looking up words that mean more than 'sorry',
and all I found was the key that I throttled into my chest to pull out my feelings,
then handed them to you.

You saw all sorts of 'sorry' written in the lining of my stomach

I thought you'd pat me on the back and push me into the world again,

but you scooped me up like some rare, fascinating yellow ladybug

and you whispered the secret to using my wings.

Why?

Why did you do that?

I made a mess of myself, I painted everything black and red and gray

and soiled the skin I wear

and in return,

you handed me a boy that carries you on his shoulder, you poured stars into our canteens,

sent a warm front through this cold town so my lungs had fresher oxygen.

Why do you forgive me so fast,

and forget me not?

And why do you keep sending me flowers,

when I don't even pull weeds?

I hum songs that remind me of my potential,

reading the same lines over and over and over

but I've never read the same line twice.

There's a picture of you on the corner of this desk, by a stack of letters your friends

wrote,

the ones sailing on cargo ships and reading Russian

and pulling cigarette smoke out of misshapen lungs in other cities.

I'd apologize for not being like them,

but you've never asked me to change.

You wrote my story with the blood that streamed from your fingerprints

and only asked me to be kind and listen for you.

but instead, I went to high school

pushed kids into walls

pulled girls' hair

sent boys into whirpools,

then buried myself in the sand.

And after I didn't do,

you breathed through your own blood,

"And it was worth it."

I never cried as much as you did

I never died as much as you did

I never bled as much as you did

But I never loved as much as you did

and I've never loved anyone

as much as I love you.

I'm sorry I didn't write you a poem and plant flowers in the garden.

I'm sorry for closing my ears at you,

for throwing rocks at the statues you carved

and smearing cold paint on warm things.

But thank you, Lord, for keeping your hand on my shoulder

even when I shrugged it off

even when I pulled away.

I can't find the words to end this poem I wrote for you.

But you once told me

good things have no end.