Indulging myself in a depressing rant/breakdown- for all of you wondering 'why I try so hard'

My mom was kind of a slacker in high school. She dropped geometry and took Home Ec. Yet, she has a full time job. My dad didn't even earn a diploma, though if he would have he would have been an English major.
I say What The Heck.
Maybe it's just my over-achieving self talking, but I can't imagine throwing my future up to fate like that, hoping I get lucky. Hoping I marry a rich man who also has a nice personality.
It's really fear that makes me an 'over-achiever.' Everyone is talking about The Economy and The Recession, The Unemployment Rate and how it's so high these days no one can get a job unless they have 'connections' or if they 'get lucky'. I'm afraid of failure.
All the 'grown-ups' are warning the Students Of Today to make 'good choices' because You Are Going To Regret It So Hard Later In Life If You Don't. They are practically threatening us with horrid, homeless futures if we don't strive to be The Very Best in not just any career we have an interest in, but specific careers that are 'in demand' for members of this young, 'tech-savvy' generation.
The message is being received loud and clear, my friends. Decoded and stripped to the bare truths, the message is that unless we treat all others who excel as our rivals and try to beat them (particularly in the math, science and 'computer stuff you kids are so good at'- supposedly...I recently convinced myself that I needed to learn css and html code, just so I could add it to my resume, just in case. If you aren't good at those, have fun being unemployed) we will fail, at every aspect in life, and we will not survive in the world come graduation. From a University or technical school. Many *politicians* have spoken about the truth that "there are no longer any jobs for anyone who has 'just' a high school diploma- none."
I get it. If I don't go to college, I will die or live off welfare for my entire life. So I'll go to college. But I can't just go to any college, university or technical school. I have to go to a *good* school, an *expensive* school. Not only that, but it is now harder to get into even the state universities, because everyone is competing *so hard* to be the Best Of The Best Of The Best because they're told if they don't they will fail.
Yes, I am afraid of failure. Not in everyday life, thankfully, I don't think. Just in the future, being a failure. What if I choose The Wrong Career? The Wrong School? The Wrong Major? and I end up looking in the classifieds, desperately, scanning for something that I'm qualified for *and* that pays more than minimum wage? I'm going to need some way to pay off student debt that I will surely have. Will I be able to graduate even when I can't afford to take classes, even though I can't afford *not* to take classes, in the long run?

I'm 17 and a half years old and I'm thinking about how I will ever afford to retire. Thanks to all the adults that have made that possible with your lectures and so-called motivational speeches. Oh, I feel absolutely no pressures from My Elders and The Rest Of Society whatsoever- except all of it that's telling me that I will fail at life if I don't beat everyone else to success.

Impact

When a droplet becomes a wave-
When a tree becomes a forest-
When one becomes a thousand-
When a freak becomes the norm-
is that when we start to care?

When it's made cost effective-
When it's made convenient-
When it's made mainstream-
When it's made easy-
is that when we step in to help?

Try to get up,
try to help...
but energy is hard to find these days,
and no one is watching-
So what's the point?

To help
The single droplet?
The lonely tree?

Thoughtexplosion

BOOM! goes the dynamite inside my head
bigger than anything I'll ever dread
all the thoughtbuildings destroyed and thoughtanimals dead
thoughtrecovery teams handing out bread
to the thoughtvictims that so badly bled
protecting my thought treasures and memories instead
of taking shelter where explosive thoughts did not tread
good thing my most precious memories were encompassed in thoughtlead
because everything else has been destroyed just by having been said.

The Great Pacific

There's nothing quite as refreshing as feeling small..
A smooth rushing wave spreads towards you and everything else that's near, the sand beneath your toes stretches farther than you've ever been able to see before and you can't hear your company calling, who has shrunk with distance, shouting, trying to be heard over the crashing and rolling, in a world too vast and open to be concerned with things like sandy toes and pant legs dripping from water that unexpectedly rose too high. They don't mean a thing.

You step in and feel the pressure on your shins, pushing you back, pulling you in. In the end it doesn't matter which way you go.

You know you'll end up like the sea shells, washed up on shore, or what's left of them, broken into pieces, some so tiny they could end up as slivers in your sandy feet. The massive tide finally wore them out, and it was sudden, as you can plainly see when you pick up the triangular bits of remains.

But then, for a moment, you feel big again, at least compared to the broken shells. You must be more worthy of surviving than them, you think. Shells merely contain life whereas you are life, right? Is a body better than a shell?

And you feel small once more, watching the sun set. What light there is left illuminates still so much of a something that you wouldn't be able count in pounds or meters or single entities of other sorts. There is no measurement for beauty. It's everywhere, and you want to touch everything so that it may stay with you even when you're gone, or that maybe you'll have the honor of being able to stay with it.

But you feel as if you're not even there to begin with, such is your impermanence. Every footstep lasts but a few seconds on the shoreline. However, you are also glad that some things remain untouched and that some actions (however small) really have no consequences, no impact, and no trace whatsoever. This feeling brings a whole new meaning to having the weight of the world lifted off of your shoulders.

There's something freeing in being small. And yet, you are like the one shell that remans intact when the tide crashes in so violently and disrupts your peace, time after time. You see the others crack and shatter, the ones who could not wthstand its mighty power, but you stay strong, as small as you are, because as meak of a purpose as it seems, you can provide a shelter to life even more vulnerable than yourself. Your shell may be crushedeventually, but it's okay. You don't matter but for the life inside of you.

Storm

I here you coming, see the sun flee,
and it's dark when it's not supposed to be
I feel disappointment, lethargy,
and anxiousness for what soon will be

Now it's falling, pouring down,
little, sharp, stabbing the ground
Now, after silence, the air fills with sound,
while puddles form on the ground

I'm waiting so impatiently,
taking it out on those closest to me
I'm watching the storm enviously
its rage produces life, unlike me.

Love & Acceptance Go Hand In Hand

To a special someone who has found a special someone: Don't give up. Don't let them wear you down. You're not alone.

So beautiful, blue- and green-eyed
baseball cap and curls walking side by side,
fighting, fingers intertwined, holding hands
proudly wearing invisible rainbow bands
they use their love to fight this war,
ironic, it's also what they're fighting for.
One brushes a lock out of the other's face,
how are they different from the rest of our race?
make-up on all four eyelids,
why does this mean they shouldn't have kids?
judgement is a risk they take
for a better future's sake.
I don't want their strength to wear down
before they can both go shopping for wedding gowns
but they are still so criticized,
and I thought more people had realized
that hate is useless, love is the key
for any kind of family.

Wide-Ruled Paper

I feel so little writing on
wide-ruled paper,
because it makes me forget how
old I've gotten,
like I'm just learning how to scrawl between
over-sized lines,
funny, they're starting to look smaller.

Now I'm going back to using
colorful crayons,
or maybe my hands are covered in
finger paint,
regardless, I'm not using a
No. 2 Pencil,
or if I am you can be sure I'm unaware of it.

You know, time travel doesn't always require
a time machine,
I'm not going faster than
the speed of light,
I can just sit in a chair and scribble
on wide-ruled paper,
or color with markers outside the lines.

I wouldn't go back in time to
change anything,
I'm strong enough to live with
my own mistakes,
but changing and reliving the past
are two different things,
and just reliving it makes boring science fiction.

But so what if no one else cares about
my memories,
and so what if my memory might have
tweaked events,
I'm just learning how to scrawl between
over-sized lines,
funny, they're starting to look smaller...

My Box

NEW POST
^ ya, I know, right? Haven't done one of these in a WHILE. I could make various excuses, but the truth is I just haven't felt like typing stuff up. I have written things, but most are...how you say...crap. here's something that I don't think is crap.

Fear.
Anger.
Insecurity.
Claustrophobia creeping through my veins,
Didn't know I had claustrophobia...
These walls, this box, only I can see it.
I built it myself,
with no help
from anyone...
No one else to blame.
It only took 15 years. Do you like it?
That side is fear.
It traps me, keeps me thinking I'm
comfortable enough where I am,
more comfortable than I would be out there-
out of my box,
where I can see no comfort,
because my wall of fear is in my way...
The one across from it is anger.
Anger shuts the sunlight out, keeps me in the dark.
Isolates me.
Makes me believe I want to be isolated.
Fools me into believing that I'm elevated.
Behind me is Insecurity.
Oh, it's also in front.
Can't move backward because of expectations,
can't move forward because 'average' has limitations,
and we all want to be average right? Normal...
So what's keeping me from climbing over these walls, overcoming,
abandoning insecurity, anger, fear, and just running?
Well, I'll tell you,
there's a heavy cover on top of my box that keeps me here,
One I just can't lift.
Many call it ignorance.
I call it a ton because its weight on my shoulders is
roughly that of 2,000 pounds...
But hope is not quite entirely lost,
I hear there's a key somewhere,
legend has it, to my box.
Goes by the name of
Knowledge. Experience. Awareness.
Something like that, I don't know.
I hear it's beautiful, fits any lock,
could free anyone and everyone all at once.
I would look for it, i would, we all would, I know it.
Trouble is we're all trapped inside our own box.

the bus ride II, prologue to 'the amabassador'

still not done with The Ambassador, turns out it's a bit more complicated than I thought. but hey, im getting some free-verse practice in, so there is that upside.

As if he can't possibly contain himself any longer,
a man on the bus shouts,
"My wife had a baby last night! I'm a father!"
 The bus stops and an older man gives the new father
a congratulating pat on the back on his way out.
Calls of 'Congratulations!' and 'Boy or girl?'
emit from throughout the bus crowd.
 "A boy, a little boy. Full head of hair,
most powerful blue eyes you ever saw."
Every word is soaked with pride.
"aww," and "oh how cute" echo throughout the bus,
mainly from the women,
but when they die down it's silent again.
except for the engine of the bus,
the metallic sigh of the doors opening and shutting.
The new father fidgets for a few minutes more,
his mood finally settling with the rest of the passengers,
and I wonder,
was that really all the reaction he would get?

the bus ride I, prologue to 'the ambassador'

The Ambassador will be on that new page u see at the top there in a bit. im still working on it. it's an experiment with blogger's new gadget, mainly. since im working on a story thingy-ma-jig, i thought i'd try it out.


Hesitant, inquiring,
you sit down next to me,
cross your legs self-consciously,
pulling at your skirt.
I can tell you're different
because most girls around here wouldn't bother
being self-conscious with those kinds of legs.
They'd wear a shorter skirt than yours,
and be more than comfortable.
I know you're different
not only because I know everyone else on the route,
but also because you're so obviously
so uncomfortably
out of place.