Lindsay’s Scribblings

Fall is nostalgia
Inexplicably
The decaying piles of withered oak leaves
And crisp clear chill
Remind me of the past
My past
And my reminisces
Are of raking into black plastic garbage bags
And car trips
And costumes
And getting cheap Chinese food at the mall before a tournament
And waking up early for Certamen practice
And Christmas already
And brief good-bye kisses
And relatives I might see
And relatives I won’t
And shifting a standard while holding hands
And music I listened to as I paced the frozen ground
And books I was reading in the wicker chair on the porch
Fall is nostalgia
And involuntarily
Spontaneously
During a rush of oxygen intake
My mind catches scent of yesterday
And for a split-second
I remember as if I never left

Friendly chatter
Is never really prattle
Not when it’s meant to be more
The underlying notes
Straining to be heard
We of course
Pretend we don’t notice
Such a conspicuous cue

I’m talking
Rambling
Blundering onwards
And you take my hand
And tell me to keep going
But my mind has been 2 sentences
Ahead of my mouth
For quite some time now
And my mind just somersaulted to a split-second
Halt
So I’m paralyzed for a moment
Fumbling for the words that I left off at
My arm is tingling
And as the gears click back into place
A flash of warmth floods my body
My brain only just
Reacknowledging the presence of my limbs
I look into your eyes to finish my unrelated
And therefore unimportant sentence
But as I do it happens again
That burst of complete confusion and happiness
Which makes me forget everything
Except for you

Watching the beautiful catastrophe
Compelled to stare and not look away
My life, fading before me in every dirty drop
Down from my shingles, over the gutters
Down onto my sidewalk, in front of my porch
And on the other side of the cold clear sheet
I watch the world change
And everyone around me continues their busy little lives
Unaware of the havoc wreaked in mine
Everyone around me delights in the weather
As do I, whose mood summoned the storm
But everyone else can blame someone else
And live clean in faultless security
But I am compelled to watch
To stare and not look away
While my life fades

 

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You wouldn’t know it
From how secure I feel in familiar company
You wouldn’t know it
But I’m afraid of the competition of the world
Because I can never be everyone’s friend
I can never win every game of politics
And maybe the spheres I’m in
Aren’t an important part of the world at all-
But they are my world
One you wouldn’t know
I feel inadequate to thrive in.

That look
Is the most incredibly perfect look
I have ever received
Searching
For acceptance
But telling me
I am wonderful
And beautiful
And smart
And forcing me to look away
From the power of those expectations

I’m waiting for you
To stop berating yourself
Of course you are nervous
I would be nervous
I was nervous
But you have me
And I care enough
To work things through
So don’t be nervous
The first time for everything
Is always the hardest
But if it wasn’t worth trying
Neither of us would be

Counterfeit pieces
Looked like they matched mine
Yet all the time I’m watching the paint peel off
To the cheap vinyl base
And every now and then
The luster of those parts
Seems to gleam softly just as it did before
Until closer examination proves
Even that temporary glow
Falls short of compatibility

Intertwined
The events that compose my life
Transparently linked
Only visible under direct spotlight
But nevertheless
Connected
Over and over again
I run into the same people
Doing the same things
Somehow intertwined
With me

When my life changes so drastically
I find myself recounting
Every major event to date
And how each has molded me
From the sweet innocent naiveté
To a slightly more realistic, less idealistic
Version of the same model
And though I can’t change the past
Every step in the present affirms my resolution
To avoid losing any more of myself