"Independence"

I am on fire.
Sitting here, stir-crazy, fever over,
head full of bliss and thoughts flying faster than-

On the edge of a cliff
I look out towards the horizon and see such sights-
What's there? I want to sail out and touch the sky
Soar into space
Breathe the breath of an untouched land.
Discover a place of my own.

The numbers rattle in my head.
Zero, one, rpush, copy, skip if zero-
if, foreach, do-
my fingers brush the keyboard as I stare into a blank-

It's on the tip of my tounge. I want to say, to shout, to pronounce
It's here! The time is now!
I know the language, but the thought eludes me.

Buffer, drawback, vector, rotation, input, output-
servers crashing behind me like towers collapsing
I jump the fence, the fresh breeze of sea air filling my lungs

and I'm here.

Sitting here, stir-crazy, fever over,
I am on fire.

An untitled poem which meanders from nonsense to sense and current personal truth. I would like to do more on these themes later with a better balance- i.e. making more sense and being less preachy. But I like this anyway, so here it is.

I.

Oh, how I hold!
a borderline, dime
drawn from the depths of the
etherland.

Will. Tell,
the tall tale of daring,
caring, stricken
struck down and
pound

free-flowing, towing
the dawn
a ship of more oars
a thousand ears
dead men's nails,
tails.

To which waters
brickety-bracket,
brackish,
of the brakhage
glue and dirt.

Hurt,
Lost, tossed
Pain, blame
Love, over

To what end.

I love.
I fear.

I die an easy death

Oh, to lay down in the lillies,
lillid,
amidst the blithe, lithe
bed of grass itch and greens

Ani L'dodi v'dodi Li
And if I could only love God
as he Loves me
Love others, as he loves them,
the world would be right

Look for the dove with the olive branch
not the crow with the black eye
bound, found
amidst the muck and grime
of your heart.

Start,
today,
Pray about it.

God knows we can't do it on our own.

II.

Have I lost my purpose
or found it again
amidst the drudge beauty
of this life?

Wandering
lost, found
the sounds resound too loudly

Proudly, I open the gate
Only to find what awaits
is not what my ego expected.

But I am not damaged.
This pain is not coming from higher truth.

Ergo,
the peace I find
Serenity of mind and body

Haughty, sometimes
when I'm out of control

The toll of pride,
wide expectations

no humility.

But that is no way to live.

III.

So what is my higher truth?

Love. Be.

Peace. Grace.

Don't feel guilty for being human,
but take responsibility for bettering yourself,
improving your corner of the world.

Colors are so bright!
Tastes so rich,
Air so sweet,
The sky so blue,
Trees so majestic,
People so pure
When you walk in Grace.

Oh, to be Loved!
And to Love.
How fond God is of this little rock
on the edge of nowhere,
in some odd universe.

These humans,
How wonderful are they.
To delight in Creation, creativity
art, music, learning
Hurting, yearning, killing
Giving in to their darkness, indifference

Turning away.

Hurt. Pain. desolation.

Weep. Sob. Cry out,
for the Love not begetting love,
Grace not begetting mercy,
Kindness begetting selfishness.

But we are all children of adam.
We all have our piece of the puzzle,
our part to play in the bigger scheme,
for better or for worse.

Love. Fear. Be in Awe.

Be grateful.
Life is so much better with gratitude.

Don't take this world for granted.
It is a precious gift, our one and only home.

Every day is full of miracles,
big and Small.
All you have to do is look.


NB: Ani L'dodi v'dodi Li is from the Song of Songs, and translates to "I am My Beloved's, and My Beloved is Mine"

Yesterday was the 7th anniversary of this blog. I try to make a post on that day every year, but as of late I've been pretty involved with life, introspection, my girlfriend, etc. Still avoiding work like I always have been, but overall I feel like I've been improving a lot. I got straight A's for the first time in recent memory, and I hope to do very well again this semester. A lot of stuff is still up in the air: Will I get an apartment next year? Where will I live during the summer? Will I get an internship? Am I on track to graduate on time?
I'm trying to deal with this kind of stuff more and worry about it less.

A few interesting things have been happening here at Chapman. Salman Rushide came to speak; he was enlightening, witty, and entertaining. He signed my copy of Haroun and The Sea of Stories, the same copy I received in middle school. It has been one of my favorite stories since, although I have only read it twice.

Today, I went to a poetry reading by William Stobb to promote his new book of poetry, Nervous Systems. I went on a whim with the intention to leave if it "wasn't any good", but I found his writing very interesting. His language, especially the way he read it, possessed a kind of floating quality that's difficult to describe. He generously gave away some copies of his book at the end but I paid for mine on principle and he was kind enough to sign it. The crowd was pretty thin (pretty average for Chapman actually) but I enjoyed it a lot and wanted to plug his book here.

One of the things that I brought up during the Q&A session afterward was the small audience of people who enjoy poetry, and I think we both have similar feelings about it. I don't usually write for an audience, I write to get ideas out of my head and play with them a bit. I don't know all of my reasons for publishing them here, but I figure that if someone happens upon them and enjoys reading them, they have done more good than if they had been sitting around my hard drive or notebook.

That line of thinking is the main reason this blog still exists. It's been here for me when I've needed it, and occasionally has been entertaining or useful to others. By that notion, it has been faithfully serving its purpose for seven years.

Extreme biking! LS3 fine cut! Long ass hikes, eating healthy, unix hacking, sleeping at odd hours.
Not so bad for a summer but I still feel like I need to kick it up a notch.

Looks like the Apple job isn't gonna pan out. Maybe next year.

So, first year of college is finally over. It's a relief- it was crazy. I disappointed myself but managed to pull a decent average out of the bag, so what the hell. I'll try to not slack off so much next year.

This summer has been mediocre so far, although I've been trying to pack it full of stuff to do and I think I've more than succeeded.
School has been out for almost a month. A lot has happened, and a lot hasn't.

Things I'm looking forward to:

• A part-time job at the Apple Store, if I get it.


• Getting microeconomics out of the way, and hopefully finding some way to apply it to:


• the production business I'm trying to start with Nate. If all goes well, our first video shoot will be this weekend at the Fox.


• ¿Internships?


• Getting shit done on Project Aqua.


• Finishing Liquid Strike 3, finally!

Things I'm not looking forward to:

• Post-post-postmodernism or some sort of dadaist new wave


• Death and taxes


• Our sun burning out, universal entropy

After making that list I figured I should just get it all off my chest, so here's a post-post-modern dadaist new wave poem about death, taxes, the sun burning out, and universal entropy:

Sun shifter?! The identity
FACTOR of which killed
and from reborn, WHAT<>
I wait below
above, beyond
moon sun rain earth die
cold showers broken, nozzles
die, die, dead.

Today is the first day in a long, long while that felt like summer.

I've been thinking about this for the past week or two, and today it really hit me. We're going to be done with high school in a few weeks' time. I can already taste the freedom.

Done; finished! This is going to sound corny, but the past four years have been a time of joy, pain, torment, confusion, realization, and self-discovery. Mostly torment though.

And now, here we are. This chapter of my life is drawing to a close. Not so long ago I was apprehensive--I was unsure if I could make it in 'the real world'. But thinking back, that's the same way I felt before high school, and I did alright.

I just realized something that I had never really put a finger on, but had always been there; I like having responsibility because of the freedom that comes with it. I was almost afraid of the transition between teenager and full-fledged adult because of the greater burdens of responsibility that adults face in day-to-day life. However, I now want the great freedom that comes with those responsibilities, and I'm ready to step across the threshold.

There's no way for me to know what's around the bend; but whatever happens, I finally feel ready to face it.

Now, I'm planning on fully enjoying the handful of responsiblity-free months that lie ahead. Peace out.