uh. wow.
I just finished high school.
I mean. Uh. Whoa.
I just FINISHED high school.
Okay, so I still have to do the graduation ceremony and finish my yearbook pages and take a PreCal test, but ZOMG DUDE TODAY WAS MY LAST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL EVAR.
Anyway, it didn't hit me at all until English, which is really the class I've bonded the most with -- we've been in the same class for (technically) all 4 years, though we only pared down to our familiar 14 after freshman year (half the class dropped out of AP between 9th & 10th grades). Ms. B gave us a journal each (so pretty!) and then she gave us our last creative writing assignment -- we had to write our own take on the poem "Walking Out" by Stanley Plumley. Everyone got emotional like crazy; it was like a chain reaction of tears, starting with Joy and Christa (always the first to cry at anything), then spreading through the class -- and when O.D.'s cryin', you know EVERYONE's cryin'. (O.D. = massive football player tough but senstive quiet-guy type.) Maybe you had to be there, but... wow. We just finished high school.
Have I mentioned that it hasn't really sunk in yet?
Anyway, here's the original poem and my take on it (written in about 10 minutes, so forgive the sketchiness, but I thought it came out pretty cool for a quickie):
I would walk out of this flesh,
leave the whole body of my bones.
If I could, I would undress utterly.
I would be silence. Even the sleeves
of my best coat would not know me.
I would write my name in cold blood
by a candle whose flame would be fire,
air, breath, everything, including paper.
I would be totally absent from myself,
from thought of myself; I would forget
myself entirely. I would go out only
at night, naked and perpetually catching
cold, and, in fear of footprints, walk
on my hands. They would think five-toed bird
and at the edge of the water, imagine flight.
But I would still be walking, if I could,
out of body, leaving behind, in a wake
of absence, clothes, fingerprints, words.
***
It’s a cool place here, and quiet. I walk into darkness, but this is not the other side - so many people look inward from their waking lives and see something close and dark and small, insignificant, but this is only the barrier. It takes only a little courage to keep going, only enough to face the fear of the dark. Beyond is everything.
The fourth dimension, the tesseract, going inward to go outward, becoming smaller to become the infinite. Beyond the dark is like a reflection in deep water, where the things closest to the surface in life are the things now farthest away. At first there is the overwhelming sensation of being alone, but it is not loneliness, because people are far away yet still somehow here. Alone, I am free.
This is the place marked on the edge of the map: Here There Be Dragons. Here is life and light and magic; here things grow, and here they also die, but there is no grief. Here is God and Allah and Buddha and the Goddess and the Great Spirit and the Universe. Here is home, and here I am loved.
My fears are here also, no smaller than I remember, but real, tangible, conquerable. Some of them I speak to, and they listen. They are as afraid as they make me, wild animals of the mind. We speak in quiet voices. The thunder covers the sound, blankets it and us - me - in a cool breeze; the light is dim, the sky pure grey.
I do not look back as I go on. The further up and further in I go, the less of myself I remember and the more of myself I become. I begin to reach the deepest parts of the reflection but I do not remember the life which they reflect; yet I know them, the people I love, I know them truly for the first time. They know me also, and I am grateful. There is no speech, only warmth.
At the end there is again darkness, and I am again alone. Still, there is no loneliness - I close my eyes, let the last of myself go, comforted by the knowledge of the path back.
My end will be among the stars.
My biggest thanks to runefallstar for unintentionally introducing me to Carbon Leaf. "Changeless" is my graduation song.
(On an entirely different note, I have had a tic in my right lower eyelid for three days straight. OMG STRESS. Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all summer.)
The Orpheum performance is on Monday. We had our last practice tonight. Again with the OMG.
All I have to say is: O_O.
-rave
I mean. Uh. Whoa.
I just FINISHED high school.
Okay, so I still have to do the graduation ceremony and finish my yearbook pages and take a PreCal test, but ZOMG DUDE TODAY WAS MY LAST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL EVAR.
Anyway, it didn't hit me at all until English, which is really the class I've bonded the most with -- we've been in the same class for (technically) all 4 years, though we only pared down to our familiar 14 after freshman year (half the class dropped out of AP between 9th & 10th grades). Ms. B gave us a journal each (so pretty!) and then she gave us our last creative writing assignment -- we had to write our own take on the poem "Walking Out" by Stanley Plumley. Everyone got emotional like crazy; it was like a chain reaction of tears, starting with Joy and Christa (always the first to cry at anything), then spreading through the class -- and when O.D.'s cryin', you know EVERYONE's cryin'. (O.D. = massive football player tough but senstive quiet-guy type.) Maybe you had to be there, but... wow. We just finished high school.
Have I mentioned that it hasn't really sunk in yet?
Anyway, here's the original poem and my take on it (written in about 10 minutes, so forgive the sketchiness, but I thought it came out pretty cool for a quickie):
I would walk out of this flesh,
leave the whole body of my bones.
If I could, I would undress utterly.
I would be silence. Even the sleeves
of my best coat would not know me.
I would write my name in cold blood
by a candle whose flame would be fire,
air, breath, everything, including paper.
I would be totally absent from myself,
from thought of myself; I would forget
myself entirely. I would go out only
at night, naked and perpetually catching
cold, and, in fear of footprints, walk
on my hands. They would think five-toed bird
and at the edge of the water, imagine flight.
But I would still be walking, if I could,
out of body, leaving behind, in a wake
of absence, clothes, fingerprints, words.
***
It’s a cool place here, and quiet. I walk into darkness, but this is not the other side - so many people look inward from their waking lives and see something close and dark and small, insignificant, but this is only the barrier. It takes only a little courage to keep going, only enough to face the fear of the dark. Beyond is everything.
The fourth dimension, the tesseract, going inward to go outward, becoming smaller to become the infinite. Beyond the dark is like a reflection in deep water, where the things closest to the surface in life are the things now farthest away. At first there is the overwhelming sensation of being alone, but it is not loneliness, because people are far away yet still somehow here. Alone, I am free.
This is the place marked on the edge of the map: Here There Be Dragons. Here is life and light and magic; here things grow, and here they also die, but there is no grief. Here is God and Allah and Buddha and the Goddess and the Great Spirit and the Universe. Here is home, and here I am loved.
My fears are here also, no smaller than I remember, but real, tangible, conquerable. Some of them I speak to, and they listen. They are as afraid as they make me, wild animals of the mind. We speak in quiet voices. The thunder covers the sound, blankets it and us - me - in a cool breeze; the light is dim, the sky pure grey.
I do not look back as I go on. The further up and further in I go, the less of myself I remember and the more of myself I become. I begin to reach the deepest parts of the reflection but I do not remember the life which they reflect; yet I know them, the people I love, I know them truly for the first time. They know me also, and I am grateful. There is no speech, only warmth.
At the end there is again darkness, and I am again alone. Still, there is no loneliness - I close my eyes, let the last of myself go, comforted by the knowledge of the path back.
My end will be among the stars.
My biggest thanks to runefallstar for unintentionally introducing me to Carbon Leaf. "Changeless" is my graduation song.
(On an entirely different note, I have had a tic in my right lower eyelid for three days straight. OMG STRESS. Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all summer.)
The Orpheum performance is on Monday. We had our last practice tonight. Again with the OMG.
All I have to say is: O_O.
-rave