On The Mothership

The heart I wear is not purple Too many families, spouses, and mothers Lose sons and daughters in combat For unidentified cause For senseless killing, Self-sacrifice for the self The war drafts en masse We all fight the same enemy And too many brothers and sisters Lost in combat. People don’t like to talk about It Newspapers try to glorify It Undermining those who have been through It Nobody chooses to go into the trench And nobody is willing to go into the trench voluntarily, To save their brother. Those who desert think it’s the easy way out But nobody likes to talk about how they treat you when you do Some place the blame on the enemy Others speak in hush tones of abandoning the fight People don’t like to talk about suicide I didn’t ask to go to war Yet I was drafted, all the same Sent to the trenches There I sat holding breath Knowing the enemy waited at ground level Waited to put me six feet under Waited to force my hand in aid I waited in the ...

This year has been an extraordinary year, with extreme highs and lows, pain and difficulties, love and happiness. I want to take a while to recap each month and recount some of the highlights of this year, as well as some of the low points. January: Came in with a bang. A month in which I was still working on finding my footing as a person, as most of the year has been. I started the month off in Raleigh, fulfilling one of my goals of trying new things. I went roller-blading and visited the NC Museum of Art. This was also the month I started really getting into David Byrne and the Talking Heads -- musical and philosophical influences that would help shape the rest of my year. Kicked off the second semester at Pfeiffer University. A challenging semester, but I managed to make it through without too many hiccups. The semester in which I took the digital photography class offered at the university -- a class that would help shape me as a photographer and give me the roots to really s...

_Talk to your friends (talking includes, but is not limited to words) _Breathe deeply _Eat things that make you feel good (not people, please) _Love deeply, unapologetically _Write. Write things for nobody to read _Remember, you don't owe anybody an explanation for your existence _There's always a song for how you feel. If not, write one _Walk outside, talk to a tree, talk to many trees. The trees will talk if you listen. _Make friends with one of those trees _Give it a name. Maybe Bobby. Or Margaret _The things you do don't always have to make sense _Remember that the universe is a lot bigger than you _Wish people a good day and mean it. Really mean it _Sing loud for the sunshine _Try new things, even if they’re scary (don’t kill yourself, please) _Thank the Sun for existing _Breathe in its life-giving rays _Remember that every winter must eventually come to an end _Don't be scared to change as often as the seasons, so long as it's for the bett...

It's pretty hard to believe that we've already completed the first month of 2018. New Year's Eve remains so vivid in my mind that it still feels like it was last night. If you've been following my blog since its creation, you might recall that the design has been revamped a few times, so naturally, entering the new year, it was time to bring the blog up to date with my current style. The New Year not only brought new ambitions and hopes, but new projects and experiences. 1) This year, I'm working on finishing up a project that I started late last year, which is a book of poems. It will be a series of self-portraits told through poetry, covering periods of my life from childhood, the present, and even some of the projected future. 2) Last December, I decided to discover new (to me, at least) music that I'm unfamiliar with. So this year (and potentially every year from now on), I will create a playlist on Spotify each month. The requirement is at least on...

Since I will being seeing the end of my senior year of high school in a few short weeks, I decided to compile a list of phrases and vivid imagery that my physics professor, Dr. Herrick, provided the class with last semester. It was one of my favorite classes I've taken and yes, I suppose I'm feeling a bit nostalgic for it. Without further adieu, I present: Physics Fun with Dr. Herrick: 1) "Suppose the cow is a circle..." 2) "For homework, you could come up with a nickname for Newton's 2nd Law of Motion" 3) "I'm like friction" 4) "Turn off the sun for extra credit!" 5) "What's wrong? Nothing, I just have to worry about supporting the weight of a mile long wrench" 6) "It's good to be blessed" 7) "The time for science is now" 8) "The earth is a lot more massive than you" 9) "Everything in the universe is ensnared in a web of gravitational attraction" ...

"New Year, New Me" is the phrase people always say, as if the turning of the clock from 11:59 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. on New Year'e Eve will miraculously change who they are. To believe this is to set ourselves up for disappointment. For three or four weeks into the new year, people become disappointed that their diets aren't helping them lose weight faster or they meant to spend an hour a day reading, but missed a couple days. Now they wonder if their efforts will really pay off. The problem is that we get impatient. We've all been conditioned to believe that everything should come to us quickly (advertisements promising faster service, faster results) and we lose our ability to be patient. After the ball drops at midnight and everyone has their last "hurrah!" of the year, we go about posting our resolutions on our social media pages and wait for feedback. The next couple of weeks roll by and we work on our resolutions with eagerness and anticipation, but ...

Yes, it has been a while, but so much has happened in the past month. Last month, my family and I took a weekend to redo my room. this included putting new paint on the walls and ceilings and buying some new things. We painted the room for hours. The longest part of the experience was waiting for paint to dry and yes, the expression "waiting for paint to dry" is accurate. We were painting those walls well past midnight. As it was, I ended up having to sleep on the couch. That was frustrating at times throughout the night when I was often woken up by cats (we have three). I did manage to make it through the night. I finished up the summer semester and only had two short weeks of break before I had to go back at it again for the fall semester (which started this Monday). This is going to be a (possibly) insane semester, and while I'm only a week into it, I don't feel the usual amount of stress that usually comes with the beginning of a semester. If anything, I'v...