snapshots

xv. my page for language arts /January 24, 2014/

The instructor said,

Go home and write

A page tonight.

And let that page come out of you --

Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?

I am thirteen, Russian-Jewish-Japanese-American, born on a quiet street in Deerfield.

I moved here, Carmel, and into another quiet street with little lamps on the green front lawns of my neighbors.

I go to school there, in Indianapolis, at a small private school that gives me so many mixed emotions and anxieties.

So, I sit at my white desk, put my lucky polka-dotted pen to the page and write:

It's not that easy to know what is true for you or me

At thirteen, my age. But I guess I'm what

I feel and see and hear, America, Indiana, Limberlost, I hear you:

Hear you, hear me, - we two - you, me, talk on this page. Me -- who?

Well, I like to write, eat, bake, and wonder why.

I like to read, sing, and see the world from the window of a plane.

Although I don't enjoy remembering it, I used to trust to easily and let me heart be broken. Now I hardly trust and keep my guard up; so many walls for someone to get across.

Now I let my thoughts flow onto in less-than-girly handwriting, and my hands shake.

I don't know whether it's because of all the pent up anxiety, frustration, and sadness, or because I worry so much about anything and everything.

So will my page be heartbroken and anxious? Frustrated or depressed?

Being a piece of paper, no.

But it will still be a piece of my mind;

As dangerous as that is in itself.

I feel alone in a room full of people,

Maybe because I see myself as a damaged soul,

Or maybe because my social anxieties flood my mind, screaming for the attention I shouldn't be giving them.

But they are a part of me as much as my shaking hands.

Sometimes, most of the time, I don't want to have them

In me, my anxieties and hands and everything else I want to be rid of.

But I learn from them -- although they're very distracting and frustrating -- and louder in my mind than my self esteem -- as my hands cause me to have to stop and clench them into fists, or my thoughts keep me awake.

This is my page for Language Arts.