clouds up

So. Yeah. Whatever.

After lit today I was talking with this one girl and she said if she went to Virgina Tech, she wouldn't go back after what happened Monday. That really bothers me. I mean, I'd like to think that I would but I don't really know. I probably would. I don't think I would want my college experience to be defined by one senceless act by someone who was very very very disturbed.

Derrick and I left at like 2am from here and went down to VA. His parents are actually taking it much better than I would have expected. They aren't blaming anyone, which I think is good. I don't think Michael would have wanted them to be too upset. It wasn't in his nature. He had such a beautiful spirit. Nobody could hate him. And yes, I know that nobody is happy all of the time, but he was pretty damn close to it. Such a rockstar.

We ended up getting back here around 4, which worked well for both of us. Things to do, you know?

Then I found out that the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship on campus was hosting a memorial service for VTech. Although well-intentioned, I don't think any one group should have sponsored it. I think, if anything, admin should have sponsored it. Said the "Hood Community will be coming together to grieve and memorialize those affected by the VTech massacre" or somthing like that. And it's not like I have anything against IVCF. I mean, I go to meetings and love most of the people in it. But, they try to make it seem like they are the only organization or only group on campus that cares about anything at all. I think that's the main reason I'm not there. I refuse to grieve in front of opportunists. I will not let them see me broken. I will not let them see me cry.

OK. Enough obsessing about them.

I'm actually (gasp) kind of proud of myself...I know...its so uncharacteristic of me. But, I my proposal done & turned in for lit paper numero two. At least I have my theme and my primary works picked out (for the most part). I'm doing it on beauty as corrosive and deadly. Typical me.

But hey, someone told me a really long time ago to write what I know. I know this. I can do this. And I have really fun (read: depressing) sources. I'm doing a bunch of Dickinson poems, Henry James's "Daisy Miller: A Study" & some Sylvia Plath for good measure.

God. I love Plath. She was so beautiful. So intense. "Lady Lazarus"-- despite critics blasting it for its anti-semetic imagery-- is my favorite.

I have done it again.
One year in every ten I manage it----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?----

Yes, yes Herr Professor
It is I.
Can you deny

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone, I may be Japanese.

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

God. She was so talented. So intense. I would kill to write like her. If sex sells, suicide does better...and she knew that. And she was so beautiful.

All of the greats were....

guess that counts me out then.