Silly girl, dreams are for the birds

silly girl, you should have known to keep your feet planted and your head out of the clouds. eye on that pie in the sky, never noticed that the roots were slowly twining, slowly climbing, wrapping 'round flesh and bone, snapping sinew, twisting tendons, disfiguring and dislocating. you never asked to be planted, never asked for this tiny little patch of grass, never knew that while you stopped, standing here, transfixed by all the endless stretch of plains before you, you'd never move one inch from where the seed was watered, fed, and grown.

silly child, you should have known you are your parents' progeny. unmovable and unmoving, yet you keep reaching your stubby little fingers to the heavens, desperately trying to grab the nearest star, arms too short to even reach beyond the treetops. ocular refraction, you gaze through coke bottle lenses, maneuvering a path through the galaxy's defenses: planets and asteroids mooning you in childlike defiance, shooting stars on a collision course to never-never-land, but burning brighter for 15 minutes than you ever could accomplish in this oxygen-depriving state.

silly girl, you should know better than to dream, to let your mind wander to the what-ifs and maybe-could-bes. maybe, only not for you. look down. look at the roots, twisted and tangled, crooked to the planet's core. stop thinking of everything you'll never do and never be. it just isn't possible, you see? for the likes of you, with roots like yours, with feet so firmly planted and arms so short, your dreams will never be reality.

so just stop reaching.

so just stop moving.

so just stop. just stop. and realize that you are all you'll ever be. and any hope you might have had, the idea of transplantation to another field, another crop, another stock, another state... any idea of maybe being more than you ... well, that's what is funny too. had you tried a little sooner, had you realized you were so firmly entrenched, had you only ...

but what's the point in what ifs?

they are simply never-will-bes, silly child, and no amount of wishing on those swiftly burning stars will ever change the fact that your own roots betrayed and trapped you. and you are you. and you are here.

and here and you are all you can look forward to when there is no hope left inside you.

Baklava Induced Ramblings, or You Say You Want a Revolution

i woke up this morning with a jolt, startled from my slumber by two realizations:
1) it was very light outside and
2) it smelled like rain

in my not fully functional morning mentality; windows to my soul still foggy, i ran a systems diagnostic. i lay in bed staring at my closed blinds, blue denim curtain rustling in the artificial breeze from my borrowed window unit. my apartment felt stuffy; i kicked off the comforter and lay on my back, fully exposed to the cold drifting air in my black and blue x-men boxer shorts and black wifebeater covered in latex stains.

(not that type of latex, perverts. i work with makeup prosthetics.)

my eyes squinted, searching for the nonexistent clock i don't let keep me awake in my bedroom. i dimly wondered what time it was, how late i had slept in, how late i would be for work, how that ONE person would stare at their watch as i came in the door, no matter how many hours of overtime i had put in the week before.

i breathed deep, popping 3 places in my back just from inhalation. certainly that isn't healthy, but i can't exactly afford a chiropractor on my current paycheck.

i stretched, toes to the bathroom door, arms wide, fingers spread out and pointing to each side in the typical "LOOK AT ME I'M FAMOUS" pose. groaning slightly, i sort of undulated in the lazy girl's equivalent of effort.

i think my face scrunches up from the strain of a really deep stretch, makes me look like i've just eaten a lemon whole and had an allergic reaction, all while slowly morphing into james carville. i'm not pretty in the early light of morning.

i turned to my side, curled back into my usual fetal sleeping position, then elongated back into a swan dive preparation. pushing up on one arm, the way Andrew Gaupp taught me back in voice and movement class, i rose to seated and fell forward over my knees, dangling feet and arms off the edge of the unkempt bed. slowly, i realigned myself popping my spine back into place and ending with a wet-dog shudder to shake off the dreams.

these weren't particularly bad, just kind of random. parkour. leito. a community center in peril. dance dance revolution to save the day... yes, my District B-13 residual dream somehow morphed into Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo. I'm still avoiding the urge to put on a hot pink headband and walk around in a skimpy tights/leotard combination.

i slipped my feet into purple flip flops to avoid cold tile on my sleep-muddled senses and shuffled, nearly tripping over a pile of laundry left-to-do, over to my borrowed window unit. i flipped the switch, peeped through the blinds...

it was effing pouring rain. in austin. in summer. on my birthday.

i opened my back door and bathroom window to let the saturated air flow through my apartment. i noticed my alarm clock, safely nestled by my sink so i don't stare at the flickering numbers in yet another fit of insomnia, was blinking angrily a nonsense time. the power must have gone out at some point from the storm.

i still haven't reset it. it isn't looking at me, and i can't see it from my current vantage point of my blue comforter twin bed, staring out the back door at cars and people tearing through the rain.

i think today will be a timeless day. with no ticking of the clock, no alarms set with deadlines and meetings and to-dos and must-finishes.

i ordered lunch, for i will do no cooking on my birthday - it is a rule i just made up. i took a shower. i towel-wrapped my dripping hair and changed into a sea green tank top and black yoga pants, neon green toenail polish staring up from the purple flipflops. i don't match at all...

so now i sit, hair slightly curly and still a little damp. stuffed full of red beans and rice, a little tabbouleh, and 1 piece of baklava - what can i say, i come from a mixed heritage out of louisiana. these are the comfort foods i crave. cajun, mediterranean ... and donuts.

freaking donuts. jelly donuts. ich bin ein berliner. with a little want thrown in there.

i think i'll hide my toolbar on my computer. listen to the rain while i stumble in the dark recesses of bookmarks and favorites, finding links i never knew existed and having nothing that needs to get done right this second. i think that is what really makes people unhappy - the lack of freedom that comes with being an adult.

as a kid, you had a curfew, you had a bedtime. you had playtime, you had school time. then you had homework. then you had test preparation. then applications and SATs and standardized tests to make your eyes bleed. you went to college for NINE FREAKING YEARS to get two degrees that, although interesting while pursuing them, ended up not getting you jack in terms of useable experience. you're now a secretary, not that there is anything wrong with that, but you were always told you had so much potential. you are jack's wasted life. 8 to 5, but really more like 8 to 7 most days. so tired on the weekend from trying to do everything that you just can't let it go; so you sit and tune out reality with netflix and streaming radio, never really progressing because you know, in two days time, you'll be back on someone else's schedule doing what they need done when they need it and ignoring your own ticking time bomb inside you.

breathe.

i wasn't really cut out for this type of society. i wake up at 3 am, more productive than i've ever been, but can't get the words out or put the picture down on paper because i have to be awake in 3 more hours to make myself presentable for work. shower, shave, makeup, hair pulled back because you're just too lazy to style it. wait 20 minutes for a bus that never runs when it is supposed to, when you could have walked to work in 30 if it weren't triple digits sweltering outside.

maybe society is the key to all this, the answer to the question i've been asking all this time - what am i supposed to do with my life? maybe i'm supposed to eschew society as we know it, start a revolution, redefine how we live our lives and how we measure our success. stop being a cog in the corporate machine. stop determining a person's worth by the size of their bank account or the classification number after their job title.

become a community of free thought, free speech, free education, free pursuits. where anything and everything is attainable to everyone. where knowledge isn't copyrighted and it doesn't cost $150,000.00 for three years and two letters after your name.

just artists and thinkers, builders and designers, revolutionaries at odds with how we're supposed to live and how we're supposed to be.

maybe the problem is with them and not with me.