i get annoyed when...

you ignore me and make me look annoying for bothering you about something important.
you watch too much television.
you act like i'm not responsible for my own issues.
you put it like i don't deserve to do anything for myself once in a while because you think i can't take care of my own shit.
you make me feel small.
you're supposed to be better and you're not.
you make a big deal out of nothing and ruin my good mood.
you're really, really dramatic.

that's not all about one person, on a sidenote.
people are just frustrating.
i want to be a good-hearted person but sometimes i have the meanest thoughts.

outspoken

Whew, lots of stuff going on.

My birthday was two Fridays ago and I swear I am never having a party again. I am in huge trouble because I asked that my dad come to my party without his wife. I’ll never hear the end of that from everyone who loves her, but there’s no way she could possibly have come without getting punched by someone who doesn’t like her. It was really hard because I wanted my dad there but I didn’t want all of this grumpiness and negativity being covered up by everyone else there who doesn’t like her. So I told my dad not to come because he said I was going to get him a divorce and she was extremely hurt and mad at me. It was a horrible feeling, knowing that he would never stand up to her, even on my birthday. But that’s what he constantly proves to me…I’ll always be second. I suppose I ought to get over it. The worst part is he’s blaming it on my sister’s “bad attitude” because I expressed that, while I could pretend to be nice to his wife, I knew Cammie and her boyfriend would be covering up negativity that I didn’t want present. So he decided to blame it on her. Completely unfair.

Then, my gramma informed me that my cousin and her son would be there the weekend of my party. Now, I have little against my cousin, but the thing is that I don’t know her and we have no relationship. We’re complete opposites in every way and I hardly ever see her. She had a baby at 16 and, while I’m constantly being reminded not to judge her, it seems to me like she’s changed her ways very little and I can’t find enough reasons to respect her. Furthermore, she and her parents have expressed subtly that they don’t much care for our family. I told my gramma that, while she could come, I thought it’d best if she didn’t because it’d just be awkward for everyone, and apparently people are mad at me for that, too.

Now, I’m not one to often stand up for myself. Now and then I’ll get up the courage to send a strongly worded email or something of the sort, but I’m generally a compromiser. I just thought that, on this particular day of my birthday, I could actually call the shots on a few things. And even in doing so, I made an effort to be polite and respectful to people. However, it was all completely misconstrued and I ended up sounding like a snobby bitch with no compassion. Families can be so understanding sometimes.

Lately, I’ve been finding it harder and harder to express my feelings without being judged or made to look like the villain. I am sort of remembering why I usually keep my thoughts to myself.

People always tell you not to let yourself be walked on, to express your feelings, to be honest. But when I finally get the courage to do so, I find myself being trampled on with judgment. It’s so hard because I want to be honest and tell people my thoughts and desires, but how do you do so without making people think you’ve changed for the worse? Do you just have to become stone and not care if people think you’re terrible? I’m usually not the one getting involved in drama and suddenly…there’s plenty of it. I think I’ll lay low for a while until people forget I ever spoke up.

Also I just ran out of the feeling that I wanted to write, so I’m just going to post this and write again some other time.

I sort of forgot about blogging.

Everything's been crazy. But a good sort of crazy with just a few sad things.

I finally moved out of the worst house of my life and am living with Cammie, the way it was supposed to be. I have a beautiful room in a beautiful little apartment with a beautiful new bed of my own and a beautiful desk of my own and beautiful new sheets and...Well, I could really cry with happiness over how good things are here. I see my mom twice a week at least and can enjoy her company without the pain that sometimes comes from living with her. It's a good compromise. Cammie and I don't fight much and we get over it quickly. We know each other so well we know when it's okay to talk again.

I think I've come to terms with my loneliness at school. I've grown so accustomed to being alone that I get uncomfortable when I do have anyone with me. So it seems that being alone is natural for me now. Whenever I make friends, I never seem to be able to keep them. They move, they change schools, or I, in my infinite wisdom and superiority complex, realize how immature they are and avoid them until they hate me. And the best thing about not being noticed at all is that people rarely can think of a reason to make fun of you. They just don't see you, is all. This makes me feel less like there's a void and more like I'm satisfied with myself. Being alone can be a strong thing. I can be strong all on my own, yes I can.

Sometimes I see him and I see another girl with him every few weeks and I just wish someone would tell them. DON'T YOU GET IT?! He'll just change his mind once he realizes you want more than to just let him in your pants. Sometimes I laugh at the immaturity of it all, this flaming desire for adult things inside the body of a child. But other times I just feel anger in me. Not jealousy, but just regret that I was the first to find out, in my naivety, and not the last. So many girls who know nothing about love and everything about falling for cheap charm have followed me. But I guess we all have to learn sometimes.

I feel so free now that I'm rid of her. Since I moved out of my dad's, I have barely even spoken to my stepmother. Just thinking of her disgusts me and I will do everything in my power to never see her again. She, in all of her self-centered glory, has ruined everything that my father and I once had. Since I moved out, we've been out together once. Our relationship is gone and, no matter how many songs I try to write about it, my sadness cannot be expressed. The problem is that it's been this way for so long, even before her. He never knew how to make us feel important. The difference now is that he's not allowed to, is terrified to. So there's really no chance at all. Sometimes I'm so angry at him but, in the end, the only one I blame is her. He has always been weak and she is taking advantage of him.

Cammie just wants to hate him and doesn't want to talk to him or look at him. She's sort of disowned him, I guess. Sometimes, when I try to get him to recognize me, she says "Why do you care? Why should he even matter?" Because we had so much more once. I've always felt like we had a special relationship because we have so much more in common than he and my other sisters do. We used to have so much fun and we have so many memories. I'm so proud of who he is. I understand him better than anyone in the world only he doesn't even know it. But I do. I love him better than anyone could. Only he doesn't see it, doesn't know what he's losing.

No words can express my grief. I've lost one of my best friends and biggest heroes. But it's not the kind of grief where I sob and mourn and don't want anyone else. It's a subtle, creeping grief that engulfs me from time to time and reminds me that, in wanting something better, I've lost something awfully important. I hadn't meant to. I'd never even thought of it as being connected. It's a sneaky sort of grief, the kind that nibbles my toes and my tummy and eyes until I cry a little and sigh a little and try to write a song a little that sounds a little dreadful.

This blog sounds sad but I really am happy these days. Only I talk about the happy so much in everyday life that I've been putting the sad parts away because I want everyone to know how happy I am. Before, I wanted everyone to know how sad I was so they could hate my stepmother with me and tell my dad to LET ME OUT. But now I want everyone to know how happy I am so they'll know I was right.

But, no matter how happy I am, there will always be sad things. I guess that's part of being human.

a few lines on flying

oh, little bird
all caged in
a cage is no nest, is it?
oh, little bird
they lied to you, didn't they
only they didn't mean it to be a lie
though they sounded so right
when the cage seemed safe
and it is safe
it's very safe
from all of the danger and the hunger and the cold and the aching and the sore wings
but somehow the sadness lingers
and little bird
you gaze out of the window
into the cradling arms of yonder sturdy tree
at the little nest all laid out there
and you wonder what it would be like
to curl up inside
the crevices of that cozy little nest
with the protective wings
of that lovely bird that silently
chirps at you hopefully each morning
wrapped around you gently
and even though you are all caged in
you still fantasize about the days
when once you flew freely
little wings beating against the vacant sky
feeling as though you belonged
knowing you belonged
oh, little bird
you don't belong here
you don't belong in a cage
only someone has lost the key
and if they can admire you
all caged in
why should they be in such a hurry to find it
and let you fly?
oh, poor little bird
all caged in...

Stuck

You chose this
No, I didn’t
I never wanted to before
And then opportunity opened another door
And a light shone through
I walked towards it in hope
And now
Again
I’m stuck.
Every moment
I feel scrutinized
She’ll remember this later
When I’ve done it again
And there are so many things to get used to
This isn’t my life, this has never been my life!
Of course I hate it!
But I wouldn’t ask you to change it
Because this is your life
I’m the one intruding
And yet I feel like your eyes
That burn into me all the time like fiery embers
See me as ungrateful, as difficult
I don’t talk
I hate to talk
I will adjust and I will grow
But I won’t change who I am
And so
I’m stuck.
I feel like a visitor in a hotel
With all of the predestined art around me
Blankets already laid out for me
My few items spread about to make it feel like home
But it’s not
If you only you knew how homeless I feel
And I feel so homesick for something
I can never go back to
For a home
I don’t even have
I wouldn’t take back the fighting
I wouldn’t take back the neglect
I wouldn’t take back the heartache
But it feels as if all of that
Was just as bad as the way I feel now
Trapped and stuck
And the light is so far in the distance that
I sometimes wonder if it was just an illusion
To convince me to do what is right
Though what is right hurts just as much
As staying with what was wrong.
No one understands, really
No one can quite comprehend how it feels
To have to keep your identity inside yourself
Every moment
And so I feel just as if I were in a dream
And someone was chasing me and
I screamed and screamed and screamed
And no sound came out
No sound comes ever comes out
So I just cry and cry and cry
As silently as I can
So that my pain can be a part of the life
I live inside of me each day
And the rest of me can fit into the life
You lay out for me each day
And I feel like
Again
I’m stuck.

The train is like a mother.

The train is like a mother. She sweeps across the city and at every stop she opens her doors like loving arms to the pretty, the ugly, the hardworking, the smelly, the poor, the rumpled, the scared. With a beep her doors announce their coming and, from rain and wind, they pile into her warm clutches, settling against her bedraggled bosom. When I sit in a seat facing backwards and the train sails down a hillside, I sink into the seat as though I am settling into a loving embrace. The world rushes around me but I find the seat beneath my comfortingly stationary. Sometimes I hate the train. Sometimes she smells so bad, disgusting me as I wipe the proverbial dust from my index finger. Sometimes her people disgust me, all going places with no purpose, probably mostly having paid nothing for her embrace and yet she carries them along faithfully, like a good priest feeding a thief. Sometimes I hate her crudeness, her coarseness. And yet I have hated similar characteristics in my own mother, so I know I still love the train.

I am friends with some of her children, though not all of them know it. One man sits in the front car as I do every morning. His dress is somewhat formal, though his shoes are not very shiny and his shirt always rather rumpled. He has about him a very awkward, blundering air and he carries a faded, threadbare backpack with him to a very business-like place each morning. He listens to an mp3 player with awkward earphones on large, red ears and his enormous facial features are plain and yet kind. I wonder what he listens to. Once, I sat across from him and he let me rest my viola against his seat while I looked for my phone. Another day he sat in front of me. His player fell on the ground and I found it for him. I told him to have a nice day, but I’m not sure that he heard me. I know what stop he’ll get off at each morning. He’s my friend, but he doesn’t really know it.

A woman takes the light rail somewhere further than where I go every morning. She looks as though she is slightly older than her years and has a very slight, fragile frame. Her brown hair is always pulled into a bun or tail of some sort that is tight and bouncy enough to have attitude. She wears large, designer sunglasses on her head and she is always dressed as though she is going somewhere very professional. Her face is not lovely. It is very plain. Her cheekbones are heavily articulated, her cheeks sallow and slightly lined. She always has large bags under her eyes. Every morning when I get on the train, she has just taken out a large travel bag full of makeup. First, she puts on lipstick and lip liner and lip gloss in dark, elegant colors. She spends a great deal of time on her lips, painting over every faded spot carefully, like an artist. When she is through, they look more full and lively, but more like a painting than a human. She applies foundation, concealer, eyeshadow, mascara, eyeliner. I noticed one day a slightly pink, bumpy arc above her eyes where she has plucked her eyebrows clean off and simply draws them on with a light brown eyebrow pencil. A card in her makeup bag says that she works for the California Department of Insurance and sometimes she reads a book about selling insurance to people. I also see a picture in her bag of her with a man. Her hair is down and he makeup looks much lighter. She is wearing a casual pink sweater. They look happy. I wonder who the man is. When she finishes putting on the makeup, she looks like someone else. She then puts the sunglasses over her eyes, even though it is only seven in the morning and she does not need them. I don’t think we’re friends, really.

An old lady takes the light rail each morning as well. She always has one of those utility carts with her and the light rail drivers always know what her stop is and open the door before she has even stood up. They always cast a fond glance at her and she smiles at them with a wide smile that is still somehow slight. She has very dark, black skin and her hair is in a few braids that are tucked under a black baseball cap she wears backwards. She reads a book that always looks rather crude. Her high, rounded cheekbones give her face a knowing look, a distant gaze of wisdom. She never stares at anything, but seems to be gazing back over the things she has known. Her clothes are faded and worn, but always clean. She is always clean. I wonder what has happened to her to make her so wise.

The train is like a mother. She sweeps across the city and at every stop she opens her doors to the awkward, the faded, the aged, the hidden, the wise. Every day, they return out of necessity. But it is more than necessity that keeps the train driving onwards. The train is like a mother. Her children need her.

Strong

http://www.mediafire.com/?tyztjxynjly

I am strong.

Things I've done in the past few days:

-Auditioned for open mic at school
-Took the light rail to school (granted, my dad was with me, but it was still supa scary)
-Wrote a poem in German
-Explained my feelings about a really big decision. Honestly.
-Blended into a family I am constantly struggling with
-Auditioned for soprano choral scholar
-Sang a solo in choir
-Did a seating audition for Premiere orchestra
-Wrote German letter to a Swiss person. (and am really scared of him reading all of my mistakes!)
-Made a new friend
-Spent four hours on one homework project. Eep!
-Finished a book
-Sang for strangers at an awkward dinner party
-Wrote a new song that I have a strong emotional connection to the singing of, and finally felt like I'm a good songwriter
-Learned to play a bunch of Beatles songs
-Planned and seriously talked about college and the future
-Began a new chapter of my life.