MIA's Paper Planes is playing nonstop for me right now.

I didn't win homecoming king. I'm silly and selfish and misguided, but I really wanted to win. I thought I deserved it. But that's not how things work. There's no such thing as deserving something--you just either get it or you don't, and that's that. It's not a question of fate, but of probability. Sometimes the cards aren't in your favor.

I feel any lesson in humility is exponentially more significant than any accomplishment you can earn. Humility's lessons are the hardest, and the most transforming. I've been hit with quite a few. I walked into school on Thursday morning with the straps on my backpack damp with piss, because my dad was so drunk the night before he couldn't find the bathroom. He didn't come to the coronation ceremony. And these things make me feel like Paper Planes by MIA. The topic of the song is gritty and pulled off the street, but she turns it into such beautiful music. I feel my life is the same way. I take all the unclean things that come my way and polish them off--into passion, or effort, or art. This homecoming experience will help me propel myself, too.

But in other, juicier news...a guy got HIGHLY sexual with me last night. It wasn't on the dance floor. To be honest, I was too upset to dance. The guy that I wanted to take to homecoming sophomore year, who I thought was the cat's pajama's then, but who I now think is a grade-A creeper, came up to me while I was sitting with my friends on the big patio outside. Although he's really creepy, he's also really...hot. He was talking with me and trying to get me to dance, when he started rubbing his leg up and down my ass! I seriously thought he was going to bone me right then and there. Of course I did not whore myself out, and definitely did not dance with him, or even give him the time of day. I just kind of sat there, ignoring him while he rubbed my ass, until he went away. Haha. How awkward. It sucks, though, because I never get ANY attention from guys whatsoever, and although I respect myself enough not to be a man-whore, I'm not made out of stone. I still need to be touched every once in a while. So I kind of enjoyed the attention, and kind of wanted more of it, and I kind of think I would have gotten funky with him if my friends weren't all sitting right there. Gah. I need me some man! As usual....

I'm nominated for homecoming king. Exciting, no? If my lesbian friend and I both win queen and king, we're going to turn homecoming...

...into homocoming. Bwa haha.

P.S.
Isn't Sarah Palin fucked up?!

...AP Biology. And it was the best decision of my life. =] Some things just aren't worth it, you know? I'd rather be happy and somewhat slacking than miserable and "ahead of the game"--whatever that means.

I think I'm going to go back to focusing on English and its subsidiaries, reading and writing. That shit I actually ENJOY. =]=]=]=]=]

...are utterly ridiculous. Thank you.

The Willow

He took them like drugs. Photos from the summer of 07. The park, the woods, the crummy seats of an ancient Buick. Cocooned in Jimmy’s farm brown arms, soaked up by his firm lips, inebriated in the dirty jean blue of his eyes. Fireworks, birthday parties, sunsets. Dances, football games, just-for-the-hell-of-it’s. Hundreds of photos flickered across the computer pixels, dazzling Austin’s eyes. The pictures were like a favorite pair of jeans—he’d slip them on as often as possible, aware of every rip, wrinkle, and stain, but refusing to throw them away.

Slumped forward and concentrating on the computer screen, tennis-shoe-white in the midnighted room, Austin struck the figure of a desperate artist waiting for inspiration to strike, elusive as he stared down his LCD canvas. He had developed a mastery of noting every detail in the pictures—every cloud in the sky, every glass on the table or bystander in the street. In a way, what he was doing was his art.

“See how the Pleistocene white of his t-shirt seems to bounce away from his sun-tanned skin? This portrait is quite characteristic of the early Jimmy-Austin dynasty, which reached both its peak and demise late in 2007 A.D,” he could imagine an art scholar remarking a thousand years down the road to a full house at the museum, all the ladies oohing and aahing in their satin dresses, the gentlemen nodding solemnly.

Austin rubbed his eyes. It was time to go. A year previous he would have been sneaking off to catch a late movie with Jimmy; this night it was for a different reason.

Slipping on his dust-plastered Pumas and a jacket, he opened and closed the back door as loud as a breath, so as not to alarm his mother, roosting upstairs. He took off running down the side of the street; he soaked in the sleeping sights of the world with absorbent, artist eyes. Skirts of light draped from the streetlamps, guarding the quaint suburban homes dozing behind them. Crickets played Puccini on their leg-violins. Bits of gravel scattered like shooting stars beneath Austin’s flying feet, aimed for the city park.

When he arrived, slaking his cilia with whooshing breaths, the first thing he noticed was the air of reverence about the place. Row upon row of grass stood massed in a silent congregation; every oak spread its weathered arms to the sky like a zealous worshipper; even the weeping willows seemed to be hunched over in prayer rather than mourning. Austin stepped through one of the willow’s veils of leaves and was immediately drenched in shadow. Running his hands along the trunk, he began to search for something. A bolt of energy raced through his brain when he felt it, a few rough gullies in the smooth bark, and the memory came back swift and clear.

Summer sweat rolling down under his shirt, between the fans of his broad shoulders, Jimmy led Austin by the hand into the weeping willow’s arbor, where they sat against her body and admired how the sunlight sketched on the ground through her hair. They had been dating for a week. Their heads, leaning back against the bark, slowly rolled toward each other’s until their lips met, as soft as two leaves brushing. And Jimmy murmured, “Happy birthday.”

Opening his eyes and reaching into his pocket, Jimmy removed the key to his old Buick and scratched their initials in the bark (JH + AW) and enclosed them with a lopsided heart. Austin laughed at the horrible penmanship, leapt up, and walked hand-in-hand with Jimmy outside the leaved sanctuary. He didn’t know then that love is like food; something that, unless incredibly well-preserved, spoils and molds over time. Their expiration date was five months later; Austin still refused to look at the label.

He had come to the park that night with a screwdriver in his pocket to shred out the letters. He had decided two hours earlier, somewhere between birthday and homecoming pictures, that he would come to his senses and get over Jimmy immediately, as his friends had told him to. He had to erase the letters etched in the bark before him to prove to himself that Jimmy was now nothing to him. Symbolism, symbolism.

But looking at their jaggedly perfect shapes, weathered nearly into hieroglyphics since the last year, he realized a Phillips Head is used for screws, not screwed-overs. He dropped the tool.

“When I’m done with you, I’m done with you. I won’t need a naked tree trunk to tell me that,” he whispered.

It was time to go home. Austin jogged back through the park’s gravel trail, then stopped so suddenly he surfed along the rocks for a second, nearly tipping over. He balanced himself and turned around. A bittersweet smile cracked his lips while he reached into his jacket, pulled out a camera, and took a picture of the park, empty and dark, but the most beautiful he had seen it.

[This should be pretty relatable for everyone going through HISS (homework induced stress syndrome).]

Wheel

i am a wheel, i go around
and around around and around around and around.
crooked grooves run down my black body
like cattle brands or bar codes;
men with greasy hands tell me i’m efficient,
i’m sorry, but i’m just ugly.

have you ever showered in oil?
greasy, scalding, and miserable, i run like a dream
beneath the ass of a ferrari,
it’s more like a nightmare,
but the wheel turns on.

yes.
turning, turning, turning,
i move in circles so others can move places,
i’m sure the leather seats are comfortable.

i am tractable with traction,
submissive to speedometers,
oppressed in the midst of high octane.
i am always moving, and most times i don’t know why,
or where i’m moving to.
i guess i’ll keep spinning
until i pop.

[More of a story/catharsis than an actual poem with a theme, but if you can find a theme, tell me!]

Black

black—too close to lack
to be a comfortable word.
black like your unchallenged hair,
running in waves and rivulets
across your lonely head.
black as in the night
when i ran into streetlamp shadows
and practiced sonnets with the pebbles,
that knew the words as well as you did.
black in the dimple of my pillow,
cupping my tears and scratching my cheeks;
you saw the black of eyelid drapes,
sheltering a sleep some twelve or thirteen miles away,
where you dreamed of yourself and no one else and your beautiful black hair.

[Pretty vulgar.]

I Am Not a Fag

i am not a fag.

i am not a tutu-toting,
prada-proffering,
limp-wristed vagina,
looking to get fucked.

i am not a back alley,
bending-over boy,
with a dildo on my key-chain,
a grin on my glossed lips.

or a walking rainbow,
a puddle of sunshine,
looking to brighten your day
and trim your nails and
renovate your house
all at the same time
while the crème brûlée cools.

i am not a fag.

i am who i am—
don’t call me a fag;
just treat me like a man.

Band camp. Deeeeeath. There was a heat index of 118 today, and I was lucky enough to be marching for 7 hours out in it. Band is pretty ridiculous, and I fail to learn just about anything from it anymore, but I'm sticking around just to finish it out in my high school career. Pffft, I'm such a tool.

There's actually a guy in band I think is transgendered. He's this real stoic, masculine guy, but he's raided ex-girlfriends' closets and even admitted to one of my friends that he likes trying on ladies' clothing and gets turned on by it. He makes a big show of hating gay people, which I think is a projection of his own insecurity about the incongruence of his masculine and feminine identities. I don't know, maybe I'm over-analyzing, but I REALLY want to meet transgendered people! I never have before.

I'm learning piano. I've ALWAYS wanted to learn! There ain't enough room in my house for a real pizzano, so I'm using a keyboard...and teaching myself how to play. As of now, it's insanely difficult.

Hey, wanna see a short movie I wrote, co-directed, and starred in? Ya bet you do. I'm the ref! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ngg8m2QXyg

I think I'm the first person on the planet not to like Dark Knight. Did anyone else notice that it was way too drawn out, had barely any good action, and lacked a central conflict? Although I am on par with everyone else that I think Heath Ledger was masterfully fabulous.

I'm getting way busy preparing for school and college so I have less to worry about during what will most likely be a heart-palpitating school year. I have every meeting and every event for my gay-straight alliance planned out (pending co-president and club approval and suggestions); I've finished most of the common app; and I completed a kick-ass college personal statement about how I faced down my school administration and won students the right to wear gay-friendly shirts, then sold over 200 of them for a campaign, even after my superintendent said we couldn't sell them, without any substantial reasoning. (Hm, I probably should have written a journal about all of this a while ago, eh?) It's a good feeling having an amazing story like that to tell. I've ALWAYS wanted an amazing story to tell!!!!

Grrrr, why is it that I can't fall asleep any earlier than 3 AM? Waking up at noon does not bode well for productivity.

Dry Confession

“hate is a rather strong word,”
he says, pulling the mug from his lips,
setting it down with a hollow clatter
on the diner’s cold and freckled table.
the mug sits close to the edge.
if i pound my fist on the table,
like i’ve been planning to do
for all these years,
it would fall.
the words “world’s best dad”
would shatter into
a hundred porcelain pieces.
is this deja vu?

when the waitress scurries up
with a refill for his coffee,
he declines.
he’s not drinking coffee—
coffee won’t get you drunk.

i can smell his demons
from across the table,
lurking behind yellow teeth,
yellow stains on his jeans;
they are my demons too.
when i pass by empty baseball fields,
when i see a kiteless sky;
when i search for missing pictures,
when i look in mother’s eyes—
those demons laugh inside my nose;
i wish i could sneeze
and get rid of this cold.

his mug is empty, my eyes are full.

“dad is a very strong word.”

Father’s Day, 2008

are you god?
because you are everywhere.
i see you all the time:
puddles and mirrors,
picnic tables
and empty parking lots.

half-empty beer cans
breathe your name down my neck;
hallmark made a day for you.

you’re probably still washing yourself
with my power ranger soap.

His policies include:

-Increased military spending to kill people in foreign countries when American citizens are already dying here due to starvation, disease, and crime. (For instance, the infant mortality rate in inner-city African Americans is higher than that of Cambodia and Somalia.)

-Supporting the jingoist state of Israel militarily, bringing further conflict with a policy that has proven to be fruitless in achieving peace.

-Tax breaks for the middle class when the lower class needs it the most, continuing a cycle of poverty that has been present in this nation since it has begun. The tactic is to give just enough money to the middle class to make it a barrier between the ultrarich upper class and dirt poor lower class. The top one percent of the population possesses over FORTY percent of the wealth.

-On the same note, raising taxes for the upper class just enough for the rate to be at pre-George-Bush levels, raising them from 19 to 25 percent. After World War II, the rate was 90%.

-Under his healthcare plan, giving the entire nation health insurance, which looks good from the surface, but which actually just keeps the wealthy and corrupt insurance companies in power, as they have been for decades. A social healthcare system has proven to be successful in many European countries.

He's better than McCain, but Jesus, this is the guy that's supposed to be the hope for America, an icon for change? He's just keeping things the same by ensuring the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.

We're at an interesting point in history. As I said earlier, since this country started, the middle class has been a barrier between the upper and lower classes, preventing a massive revolution of the poor against the rich. But in recent years, the upper class has become even more greedy, leeching yet more wealth from both the impoverished and the people with average incomes. The middle class is becoming disgruntled--at the wealth disparity, the war, the incompetency of our leaders, and the foreign policy fiascos. If the middle and lower classes can finally see how much they have in common and how much they're being swindled out of by the ultra-rich, then Americans might at last stand up for themselves and for the first time in history actually be equal.

But I'm worried. Both Obama and McCain are proposing tax cuts for the middle class to appease them and keep the barrier secure. Please, don't take their table scraps and be content with that. Get your facts, get your friends, and stand up. Real change has never come from politicians. They're just trying to save their own asses. It's up to the people to make change; in the end, the only person who can stand up for you is you.

Yay, no one likes commenting on my journals.

Has anyone read The People's History of The United States by Howard Zinn? If not, you reeeeeally should. Basically, it turns everything you ever thought about America upside down. Holy crap. For instance, I'm sure you've heard in your social studies classes that to end the war in Japan during WWII we dropped the atomic bomb. It was either that or lose thousands more of American lives in continuing to fight the war, since those darn Japs just wouldn't give up. Did you know that the Japanese had already sent word to Russia that they were planning on surrendering? And that we had already cracked their code and seen the contents of the message? That President Truman himself read it, and dropped the atomic bomb anyway? You wouldn't guess why. After Germany was defeated, it was agreed between the US and Russia that Russia would have 90 days to recoup before helping us out to fight the Japanese. But if they helped to defeat Japan, they could lay claim to the island alongside the US. The higher-ups in the US government didn't want that; they wanted complete US control of Japan and all of its economic resources. So they needed to defeat Japan before the 90 days was up; before August 8. Coincidentally the same day the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. *gong of enlightenment goes off*

That's all I wanted to say.

Recently, I've been drifting back to thoughts of previous relationships. Chalk it up to having too much summer free time. It's been almost a year since I've had a hand to hold, and I'm not going to lie and say I don't miss having five extra digits on hand (pun unfortunately not intended). That feeling of safety that comes with a lover is...wow. Fending for yourself, it's all too easy to feel vulnerable and at the whim of the world.

But maybe that feeling isn't so bad. Do you know that when exercising, muscles don't build when they're flexed, but when they're releasing? (10 points and a cookie if you do.) The heart conforms to this rule as well. I've been releasing for more than a few lunar cycles, and I know that all the while I'm getting tougher, wiser, more independent.

In the end, I'd rather be single and capable of achieving happiness on my own standards than dating all over the place and completely relying on others for a sense of well-being. Of course not all people who have partners are saps, but personally, if I had all that man-flesh, I think I would be. I just wouldn't be the same person I am today if dating came easy!