I Will Make Today The Day

I Will Make Today The Day

      I am a dreamer and a dream. Blue and gold sunlit skies urge me on through days of droopy-eyed paths. I tell myself that I can be something that the world has never seen before; the desert earth is parched and I am its quench.
      I am needed, required even, to fill the shared-conscious of humanity with silver quartz: crystal faith and sterling hope. Required to fill until the people can again feel the warmth that radiates from every windswept soul.
      I raise my eyes to the spotty scarlet sunrise, determined to move both my own and my peers' minds from the security of quilt-covered mattresses. My eyes linger on the the glass of my window for a moment before readjusting to focus on the white purity of what lies beyond the pane. The pain melts away and I rise with a navy blue boldness that shows in my skin and my smile.
      I will make today the day. The day I will quench the world.

      Each day begins this way. It is not because I have great influence, strength, or power. It is not that I truly believe that I am more important than anyone else in this populous world. It is because otherwise I will be afraid. Afraid that I am nothing.
      And I cannot start a day that way.

      I must live on in the lungs of history, be remembered with every exhale. Huddled behind piercing words and peeling paint I will live forever. Must live forever. I fear being forgotten, flee from the possibility. Yet I wallow in procrastination, watching my hours die on clocks in countless places.
      And here, with motivation lost, I end my thoughts.

A Day of Introspection

A Day of Introspection

I take a day of introspection,
and peel back all the paint
     that dictates bright eyes
     and forms charcoal sighs--
To see what I will see.

Layer upon layer falls away,
past whispers on the floor
      ostracized and lost,
      weak and double-crossed--
Masks without a host.

Even more strips are cast asunder.
I fear what I will find,
      when I reach truth's eyes,
      when I cannot hide--
I take a deep breath,

and remove the final blinding crust.

Feeling like a child in the big world
I blink at fresh sunlight.
      Unfiltered and pure,
      it reaches and cures--
I see with new eyes.

My first instinct is to cringe and hide
from myself and others.
      There is so much fear
      behind smiling mirrors--
And then it hits me.

Everyone is the same deep inside,
Craving the acceptance of
      their friends and peers,
      all dreading a sneer--
They layer on masks

to protect themselves.

And even as this realization comes
   I reach
      for paint.

Thank You Distant Moon

Life is sitting in soft sand--
      Warm, enveloping.
Sometimes the East coast,
Sometimes the West.

When the tide comes in--
      Thank you distant moon,
the rushing water gives us comfort
or burns us with cold.

When you choose the shores of California--
      You have no excuse for tears.
For running away.
Or giving up.

When you bask in the heat of Georgia--
      You have no excuse for tears.
For running away.
Or giving up.

So choose where you sit--
      or stand or lie.
Put on a strong face,
and learn to fly.

And Then Came Rain

      Rain and I never really played well together.

Whenever we saw each other I always ended up getting frustrated.

      He had always just been a whimpering wet blanket to my day.

            I saw the gray sky moping this morning and breathed an anticipatory sigh.

      But today was different. 

Maybe since we are older he decided to behave himself.

      Or maybe we are both just a little more mature now.

            He allowed me to walk to class without disturbance.

      He even waited until a roof was between me and him before he made his presence official.

The first step I took outside after class, though, immediately caused me to scowl.

      He was here.

            I was wrong.

      He had come in quick whispers, and had left the same way.

I saw the signs of him everywhere.

      I was again skeptical of his seemingly good intentions when I saw puddles.

            I braced myself for the chafing of wet socks.

      And again I was put to ease. 

The standing water was just shallow enough to not reach over the rubber of my soles.

      Just deep enough to gently splash my ankles with warm water at each step.

            Rain allowed me to have some space today. 

            I admit I was pleasantly surprised.

            I might even admit to him some day that I enjoyed it.

Perhaps They are Necessary

Most days are laughing days.
Sometimes singing days.
And occasionally a dancing day.

Every once in a while, though, I have a "What If" day.

"What If" days are the days when everything you see has a tint of gray in it.
They are serious.
Everything is serious.

They are the days when you look back and think,
"Have I wasted my life away?"
"Am I wasting my life away?"

You listen to others talking about their victories.
Their struggles and their pains and think,
"Why don't I have any triumphs to share?"

It's on those days that you wish that you could be someone else.

You'd be your best friend.
Your role model.
Even your worst enemy.

Their lives seem so flawless,
with their blue love and tears.
But even as you think that, you try to remind yourself that it isn't true.

But you still like to think that their lives are perfect.
It's easier to let that thought simmer.
Stir it until it gets thick.

Thick and it gets stuck in your head.

You spend the whole night wondering.
Wondering if there's a way to go back in time.
To change who you are.

You wonder if you can change who you are now.
But it seems unlikely.
Impossible, even.

Your heart beats slower.
You can't help but hate yourself in that moment.
Tears seem imminent, but even they seem to have abandoned you.

Your eyes close.
Just for a moment, and suddenly you find yourself waking up to a ray of the sunrise.

Its warmth meanders through the curtains just to find you.
Only you.
No one else.

You wake up and everything is in full color again.
The gray?
Just a nightmare of the day before.

Perhaps those days are necessary.
Necessary to remind us that our life isn't always going to be perfect,
that sometimes you are going to feel left behind.

The next morning though, inexplicably, you always feel okay again.

Not necessarily good,
but okay.
Ready to live some more.

Morninglight

I was supposed to copy the style of another author and write about my first day of college. I procrastinated until four in the morning the night before it was due, and it quickly turned into a satire of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight.


If you haven't read at least the first book you probably won't get it...
To be read in a whiney voice:

I hate Provo. It’s always raining here. It isn’t like Mapleton. In Mapleton it never rains and my mom is there. Just my dad works here and he’s always been overprotective.
            I walked to my first class in the Maeser building. I felt like everyone was watching me. It was raining. I hate Provo. Did I mention how much I hate Provo?
            I turned the corner into the classroom, relieved to be free from all of the staring eyes. I looked around the room; there was only one seat open. It was next to the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen. She was almost… inhuman somehow.
            As I walked to the lone empty seat I thought about how much I hate Provo. And rain. I sat down next to the girl and she hissed and scooted her chair away from me. Her dark eyes flashed at me for a moment. Then she got a weird look on her face that stayed for the rest of the movie, I mean… day. I thought, “That was weird. People never hissed at me and scooted away in Mapleton. But whatever, she’s pretty. I hate Provo. It rains here.”
            Then we went over the syllabus. I didn’t hear a word the teacher said because I was completely engulfed with staring at the beautiful girl next to me that had strangely pointy teeth.
            I broke the silence and said, “Are you a vampire?”
             And she said, “Noooo!”
            And I said, “Will you bite me?”
            And she said, “Noooo!”
            And I said, “Will you date me?”
            And she said, “Yeah cause you smell good and I watch you when you sleep.”
            And I was like, “Wait, what?”
            And she said, “Never mind.”
            And then all of the sudden there was this really buff girl that came up and was like, “I’m a really bad actress, and I’m definitely not a werewolf.” And then the pretty girl I was talking to hissed at the buff girl and I was like.
            “Hey stop that, I love you both… but buff girl you’re a baby. You can marry my son Renesme.”
            And the buff girl said, “IMMMPRINTINNNG.” And then she turned into a wolf and scampered away.
            And I was like, “That was weird, but she said she wasn’t a werewolf and I trust her because we used to build motorcycles together.”
            And then the teacher said, “Did something just happen?”
            And then I dropped an apple and the pretty girl caught it for me really fast. And then we were playing baseball. And then I was like, “I know what you are.”
            And then she wrote me a song and then another girl tried to eat me.

The End.

Nonsense Journals

I wrote these a while back in high school. I also have a knack for writing things that serve no purpose whatsoever besides being ridiculous. They are best read out loud in an obnoxious voice. Enjoy.


Journal #14

                My favorite color is blue. I like blue because it matches all of my pants, and my favorite pair of shoes. Not to mention the fact that a lot of my favorite things are blue, such as, the sky, water… when it’s in ponds, blue fin tunas, Dory, and those blue raspberry lollipops. Mmmmmm… J Sooo delicious. I wish that everything in the whole world was blue. If grass was blue, maybe I would enjoy mowing the lawn more, on my blue lawnmower. I would frequently take drinks out of my blue water bottle, and would bask in the blue sunshine. And I would eat blueberries, because they would actually be blue, instead of that crappy purplish color they are now.

Journal #15

                If I could be any animal, I would probably be a fox… Or a lemur. But we’ll stick with fox. Foxes are, well, foxy for starters. And that is the definition of me. I mean… just look at me. I’m simply dazzling! But not sparkly, like Edward. Gross. Anyways, back at the ranch, foxes are also very skinny, like me, and they are very sneaky and tricky. I can usually get whatever I want from people because, one, I dazzle the crap out of them, and two, I am very persuasive. I also am lithe and graceful like a majestic flying squirrel.

Journal #16

                My favorite kind of vegetable is the avocado, because it is so versatile. You can eat them plain, in salads, in guacamole, in salsa, and on top of casseroles and a variety of other dishes. My favorite kind of fruit is the red pear, not green pears, not yellow pears- red pears. Their flesh is pleasantly firm and the flavor is succulently sweet. It’s like heaven above had a rainstorm, and that rain fell to earth and planted a tree, and from that tree grew red pears. I also sort of like grapefruit. My favorite kind of starch is a potato. Because that’s the only plant in the starch category that I know about besides like… parsnips. And parsnips just aren’t that special. My favorite herb is dill, because when you get the plants fresh, it’s fun to run your fingers up and down the plant because it feels fuzzy.

Journal #17

                Once upon a time, in a galaxy not very far from her, in fact, it was here, just a long time ago… Ok starting over. Once upon a land right here, there were dinosaurs that ran around. They ate lots of plants. One day the dinosaurs decided that just eating plants (and each other) all day was really boring, so they decided to start a disco club. They stayed up all night, every night, discoing the night away. T-rexes danced with Stegosauruses, Triceratopses danced with Duck-bills, and thus, racism was eliminated in the dinosaurs’ society. And then a giant asteroid hit the earth and squished them all. The end. Someone should make a movie about that.

Journal #18

                In my ideal world, everyone would wear togas because they look good, and feel good, and I already own several of them. Also, everyone in Korea would have to stop eating dogs, because dogs are very friendly and don’t deserve to be eaten without written consent from them. And I’d like to see you try to get a dog to sign a consent form. In my world, everyone would be forced to chant my name every Wednesday for an hour, because I would be the supreme dictator of the world. I guess that everywhere wouldn’t be able to eat dogs, because I’d turn the entire world into one country: Spencerlandicus. There would be world peace, and I would solve world hunger by planting lots and lots of corn. Innnnndian corn.

Journal #19

                If I had time to do whatever I wanted, I would probably take up competitive underwater basket weaving. It is just a really intense sport, and it’s always been my dream to go to the Boise, Idaho national competition some day. I plan to win first place there, and take my place among the most famous basket weavers of all time. When I am done with that, I will take my prize money and retire to Finland, because the Fins are just super classy. I’m going to have a lot of extra baskets when I’m done with my illustrious career, so here is a list of things I will be keeping in them: mittens, muffins, puffins, puppies, guppies, grills, pills (legal), pineapples, red apples, one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, Scotland, cotton, a manicurist, frogs, dogs, Lincoln logs, root beer extract, newspaper clippings, grass clippings, grasshoppers, jalapeño poppers, flip floppers, glue, oranges, whiskers, cold mold and bold gold. Yep. Them’s gonna be some full baskets.

Journal #20

                It’s random ranting time, with Spencer Ballard! First off, the funny thing about platypuses is that they’re not really mammals, and they’re not really birds. I mean… what the crap? It’s like a pelican and a sea otter had a summer fling or something. Secondly, what’s the deal with junior high kids thinking that they’re the shiz? I was driving down the street the other day and a bunch of poser junior high kids were walking in the middle of the street and only letting one car go past at a time. I seriously considered doing the world a favor and giving one of them a friendly nudge with my car, just hard enough to knock some sense into him. And thirdly, we should all start convincing people we don’t like to illegally immigrate to Mexico, so they’ll think that our country sucks so they’ll stop coming here. It's not because I'm racist per se. It's because I just want to be able to go to Wendy’s and have them understand my order the first time I say it…. Not the fifth time.



Journal #21

                Let’s discuss some mysteries of the universe. Why do English people always have bad teeth? Explanation:  It is a pagan ritual to give them anti-braces when they are born, so they will fit in with all of the other bad-teethed people. Why does my teacher rule her class through fear? Explanation: her third grade teacher was a descendant of Mussolini. Why is America getting fatter? Explanation: the bees are disappearing. Why do people think monkeys are cute? Explanation: they, themselves, look more like monkeys than people. Why do people not recognize Miley Cyrus when she’s just wearing an (ugly)wig? Explanation: She’s a hypnotist. Dun dun Duuuun. Why does everyone think kittens are cute? Explanation: they are hypnotists, too. Why are bubbles so fun to pop? Explanation: your brain goes through the same process as when you drink lots of cold medicine. What do you get when a midget fortune teller escapes from jail? Explanation: A small, medium, at large. What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence? Explanation: time to ask the elephant why the heck he’s sitting on your fence in the first place. This has been –discussions of universal questions- with your host, Spencer Ballard. Please send any cash donations to 801-830-6491.

Like I said, nonsense. But nonsense can be more fun to read than a novel of literary worth sometimes. Which one was your favorite?
Want me to write a new journal entry? Comment with a prompt.