• Write bill proposal.
• Mock Congress
• Senior Research Paper
• Nine school days left
• Graduation on the 9th
• UC Davis Fall 2012.

Even the sun sets to give the earth closure. It signals the end of the sky’s time and comes up again to give birth to a new one.

They told me I was a dreamer, because I found security in my head rather than in the arms of many. Because I would rather doze off to the sound of lonely ice drops that fell by the hundreds. It was because when I told them that the air smelled like a lost memory, they could not understand. They could not see the sweet colors of a Vietnam sunset after the rainfall that drifted along the breeze. They could not feel the heat that embraced them into a reminiscent reverie. The smell of a sleeping city at noon.

They told me I was a dreamer, because I said the bitter tasted sweet. But it was true. The bittersweet taste of time seemed to touch my tongue trickling down my throat until time was digested into nothing more than measured memories of the past. It entered my bloodstream and kept me alive as it cycled through my arteries, my capillaries, my veins, pumping through me in this endless journey until my heart could not pump this blood anymore.

They told me that I was a dreamer, because I refused to go beyond a smile and maybe a ‘hello’. That because maybe one person was enough to keep me company. Because I didn’t care about being social, because I hated small talk. I didn’t need a crowd to take away loneliness. Because comfort didn’t come in numbers. Because a talk between two is the only way to get unfiltered truth.

They told me I was a dreamer, and dreamers, they said, can never go anywhere. They told me I was stuck between reality and death. But I didn’t care. It wasn’t true. Because if reality relied on excess but no substance and death was nothing more than a dreamless rest in the dark, then I would rather remain in this dream state than any other place. Because being in my dream state gave me more truth than any reality ever could and more rest than the sound of nothingness in a chained bed. I was never stuck in this middle ground. They told me I was nothing more than a dreamer but I was content.

And that was all I ever needed.

Without you I think I would fall into a deep depression. I would fall after you, and follow your pathway into destruction as well. I would become unrecognizable as my signs of life would be nonexistent, as I remain stagnant in still water. I would be alone if you were gone. I would isolate myself and never return to the surface and nobody would find me. I would wallow in my own misery without opposition. I would leave no trace of sadness behind for people to trail me. I would daze through the day alone to watch the sun rise and set again and again until I might become too dizzy to stand steady once more. I would be intoxicated by the salted breeze of the ocean, floating on my back not able to sink nor swim myself to shore. I would become invisible, because existence is merely a creation of recognition. Like time, I exist because the human mind acknowledges me. I am the soundless whisper that transmits translucent steaks of hope in the anticipation that you would hear it. And without you, my movements become passive air, my voice becomes the vibrations of silence, and my soul becomes nothing more than a cool breeze that lonely people block away as they walk down the crowded city streets in fall.

It is becoming harder to breathe. These liquid metal coated lungs. My reality intake is becoming restricted. I’m breathing mechanically now but I don’t know how long I can keep this machine going. It is becoming too heavy for my burdened ribs to support and for my body to carry. I lose my breath by rusted cogs that cease to rotate and I catch it again when I beat clenched fists against crumbling walls that are failing to protect my heart. These antique organs wheeze out music that seem to emphasize its collapsing canals. Crystallized words enter my wind pipe to disrupt the cycles of this machinery, making my breathing irregular.

It was supposed to mean a reset button. I was supposed to start over.  I had two chances to do it, but I don’t know why I backed out. It seemed like no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t step forward. I couldn’t escape my past and I couldn’t forget it. I was too scared to become unrecognizable. I couldn’t create a new identity for myself. But it was never something I was desperate for. I just fancied that thought of maybe running away from myself for a long while. But because starting over was a sad thought. Because starting over meant I was killing a part of myself. I was voluntarily swallowing in the poison that would kill my memory. The problems that I wouldn’t miss but also the translucent steaks of happiness that I used to cling on to. I couldn’t do it. I’ve left my home twice, but I could not leave behind my name.

But I don’t think I will try to anymore. For the last time I leave, I will pack my name along in my luggage. I will bring it along with me everywhere I go and never try to forget the knives that carved it in but also the fingers that smoothed away the dust that remained. I have left so many people, left so many places. I have left so much happiness, too much for forgiveness. I will leave behind this place too, but this time I will remember to bring myself along because in the end, it is the only thing I’ve got left. I have left so many things behind already, I can’t leave my identity behind as well. I can’t afford to become wandering limbs with nothing else to offer and nothing worthy to leave behind.

meteorstorms:

Sometimes I have these flashes of inspiration where everything seems to make sense. I know what I want and how to get it. And it all feels right. It’s like I’m actually in control of my life for once. But they’re only flashes that fall like lightning. They don’t stay for long. And what I need is something consistent, something permanent. I need a star.