Come What May

This is a poem about me.
Wait, no. This is a poem about you.
This is a poem about you
and all the things I will do
to prove to you
that I will fight for you no matter what happens.
Come what may and love it, they say.
Come what may and I will fight it!
I will tear down every brick of those walls they throw up,
break through every barrier they force in our way,
destroy the barbed wire fence of rules and "musts"
and scar my hands on the thorns of every voice in my head
that says I can't.
When every stinging nettle of doubt pricks up from this path we wander on
I will go before you to keep your feet from bleeding;
from the bitter poison of fear that seeps into your skin
and lingers in your soul.
I will hack my way through the army of "never's" and "not now's,"
sludge through the grasping swamps whose wicked vapor settles on your heart
and smothers your pulse with the worry of dreams never seen.
I promise to stave off whatever aching pains and harrowing sorrows will come into your life;
to cut down the giants of empty yesterdays and unfulfilled tomorrows.
All the while standing next to you
to prove to you
that come what may,
I will fight for you.

Oh BYU

Yes I would love it if you stopped in the middle of the small, narrow staircase as hordes of stampeding students are leaving and going to class and begin walking up these very same said narrow stairs Yes I would love it if you decide to stand there stoic without moving with that innocent look on your face because you have just ran in to a good friend who you cannot wait to catch up with on life hence the immediate plantation of your feet into this marble floor worn down from years upon years of students treading across them. Yes I would love it if you act defensive like you have every right to stand there in complete shock and excitement of running into this friend whom you probably actually just saw two weeks ago but you act like it has been forever and are completely entitled to hold up the entire student populace while you spend your 30 seconds of fortune and exchange pleasantries with the other unintelligent person who chose to also stand there in feigned innocence and tell you about the girl, the sports, the schoolwork, the work work, etc. Please continue to stand there as we all wait patiently to get by with our raised eyebrows and accusing looks. You have every right to stand there. You have every right to keep us all from our work schedules, to make us late to class. No, no, please, do continue your conversation and act like the bro's that you are. I've got all day to stand here trying to politely squeeze past you and make it to my next appointment without being late. Don't worry, we all understand, it's all about you.

Oh BYU.

Poetry

I've been on a poetry kick lately. It began with a poetry reading a...month?....ago Wait, wait, wait. It actually began when that one time my mom told me to write poetry and I put those two poems up on here. From there I began sharing my words with a few friends, whose enthusiasm sparked my own and whose compliments gave me hope for success. Then there was the poetry reading, and finally a friend who writes more often than I do, and probably about cooler things.

I want to share some videos by poets who blow me away. Their words and their performances are amazing and I love what they do and who they are and just everything about these poems. Enjoy!

Also, check out my friend Dave's blog here

The Most Amazing Slam Poet

by Peter Nevland

Love Poem
by Rudy Francisco

My Honest Poem
by Rudy Francisco

Ick

Ick
It's that feeling in my gut
The bitter taste in my mouth
The rank smell in my nose
The white noise in my head
This foreboding of something unwanted
coming towards me
It's that worry that I've misplaced something
the worry that I've missed the picture
that I've been blinded to the fault
of what really is
and not what I want to see.
It festers and grows
ravenous and insatiable,
eating out my insides,
seeking out that sliver of peace
I hold within me.
Unsure of how to face it
I lie here waiting for the light to come
and show me what I could not see before.
Or maybe what I would not
nor wanted to
see.

The After Effects

Remember that really fun mocktail birthday party? Well this is what your hair looks like after having it curled, teased, put up so beautifully by an awesome friend, and then after you run around looking pretty for 3 hours go dancing for another two, followed by hot cocoa at 7-11, and then youtube videos snuggled up on the couch until *cough 2am *cough:

Just another Friday night in the college life of my friends and me. Was the 'fro worth it? You bet, I had great hair alllllll the next day on Saturday :)

Mocktail Birthday Party

Mocktail Party- a reason to dress up fancy and drink sparkling cider and eat key lime pie, yep key lime pie

Oh and to use our fancy, cool cameras to take awesome photos...

Levi in the wonderful armchair that graces their living room along with the wonderful record player that was very much in use on this memorable evening

The birthday boy, Morgan, looking dapper as always

The beautiful Jamie and me bonding over pina colada drinks and all too similar past experiences

Oh Sam, looking right at home

The adorable couple JJ and Nicole; adore and respect the heck out of these two!

Kali and a new friend Tiffany suddenly realizing they've met before...in Seattle?

Laura and Ryley's wife being camera shy, but making a great photo with all those wonderful colors

Cake pops!

Never fails that these boys always get photos of me either in mid-sentence or eating something

Yes, the snake was rented as well

Don't forget the other cute couple- Jamie and Morgan

Yes this was a fixture on the coffee table. Yes you can rent, rent! animals from the Bean Museum on BYU campus, so of course the boys needed a lion head

Ryley

It took us five tries to get a "serious photo" (be like pioneers everyone!), Nicole is still about to laugh but we finally managed one!

photography by Max Daines

It's a "big sweatshirt" kind of day

It has been a miracle that I haven't been sick yet this semester, especially since there were a number of weeks with late nights and not the greatest nutrition, but I survived thus far. Until last week. Last week may possibly have been the week sent from the devil's spawn in hopes of thwarting my all existence into total chaos. It is my absolute belief that college professors have a meeting before school begins, before the syllabi are printed off, before room assignments are even made, where they decide which week they want to make every student absolutely suffer (besides finals week of course). They must chuckle quietly to themselves as they parry back and forth trying to get all of their midterms to fall into the same week too. It is a murderous business that they bandy with.

And so last week consisted of a test in my Family History class, an exam in British Literary History (which was no small feat- you try memorizing which Romantic poet said what in which poem and why on earth why!), on top of which we also had a 5-page paper due in the same class, plus another paper due in Creative Writing (which may be the class I work my hardest in and try my best in), and don't forget the take-home exam that was due in my Mission Prep class. My "aha" moment came last week on Saturday around 4pm when I had that 5-pager due at 6pm and I had yet to begin it. I realized there was no way I would finish it by staying at home, so I trudged up to campus, locked myself in at work (great place to study, no distractions with everyone coming in and out like at the library) and wrote straight for an hour and a half, wherein I finished the paper and ran upstairs to drop off. That was my "aha" moment when I remembered "Oh yeah, this is why I chose English" :)

Once the stress finally died down of that wonderfully hellatious week I guess my body decided to break down too. No more need to force myself to stay healthy and active. Now here I am on a beautiful fall Tuesday morning with gunk in my nose and a scratchy throat. The body aches are starting to set in too, but I am pretending that I do not feel them, if I do they just might actually become real and begin to take over my already viciously exhausted body. It is a sorry state of denial, but oft times believing you are sick is the only reason why you truly are. So I am telling myself it is only a little cold, something trifle and easily taken care of with insubordinate amounts of water, orange juice, lots of vitamin-C and a ton of Emergen-C. I should probably go buy some of all that then, hmmm...I've only got water at home...

And so this beautifully treacherous fall day was begun with pulling out my "sick" outfit- the biggest, old-school style Brigham Young University sweatshirt I could possibly own. It has survived five winters of Utah cold, one semester of a sinus infection and tonsilitus, a Christmas with a cold so bad that I had to take horse-sized pills of anitbiotics (so big I had to cut them in half to swallow), several runny noses, a number of despondent days after break ups, and a great amount of lazy days watching movies and procrastinating the need-to-be-done homework.

Yep, it's a "big sweatshirt" kind of day