Tick tock tick tock faster than the fastest clock

Can you feel it

Can you feel the pulse within your veins and power coursing through your chest

Grab it

Harness it

Don’t let it get off just yet

Don’t get rid of your biggest super power, your hidden secret, the one that defines you and only you the one that encapsulates your entire being and just generally makes you, you

Find that passion that burns its way through layers of epidermis as your body temperature rises

Find that passion as it cuts through your vocal cords, straining them with the need you have to let the words fly off of your tounge

And pierce the awaiting ear drums of those around you

Take that fire that burns so deep within your gut that sometimes you think you have an ulcer

Just because the only thing that could possibly calm it is the sugar clasped between your hand

Tick tock tick tock

Your heartbeat screams as it pounds out a symphony across the xylophone splayed over squishy organs, as it smashes out the guitar riff from simple tendons straining to constrain your enthusiasm

Feel the pulse build one step two step three step four as it pours through the rivulets of sweat that bead down your face, as your exhaustion catches up to you

Tick

Tock

Your heart murmurs softly as your head sinks back and your chest moves to the easy languid beat of the satisfied cat who lives around the corner

Tick

Tock

Not A Bad Thing

So I wrote this slam poem the other day, to read at our Self-Acceptance Week Open Mic night on Friday. I just thought I'd share.

Heart pounding

Palms sweaty

Knees weak

Arms…..spaghetti?

Isn’t necessarily a bad thing

Adrenaline pumping

Head swirling

Stomach contracting

Chest constricting

Doesn’t mean there is something wrong

Anxiety

Is normal

So why doesn’t it feel

Normal

Why am I trained to believe that I

Am the problem

That I’m the crazy one

That there is something

Wrong

Deeply wrong

Like,  ‘What in actual fuck’ wrong

With me

Nothing

There is nothing wrong with me

So I’m anxious

So what

So sometimes my head plays games

And a small ailment

Can become the next path to death

So what

So sometimes I get overly concerned

About having a schedule

And being on time

So what?

So sometimes I fall too hard

And I fall too fast

Because I want you to love me

Before you think I’m crazy too

Because sometimes

I believe them

I believe all those lies

That I’m not ‘normal’

That I have problems

I feed into the expectation

That as a woman

A strong,

Independent

Free thinking woman

Who doesn’t put up with shit

Who just happens to sometimes

panick until my chest constricts

And then the tears come without stopping

This

This all means I’m crazy

But you know what?

Fuck that

Fuck this ridiculous belief

That’s been shoved down my throat

And so deeply engrained in my brain

For 21 years

That makes me think that I’m crazy

Because I am not

I am not crazy.

It just so happens

That one of my traits happens to be due

To my unbalanced levels of serotonin

That my trait means that instead of running

Perfectly balanced

Sometimes I get a little high strung

This one little trait

In hundreds of genes

has founded this  this ridiculous belief

That I am crazy

I have plenty of other great traits

I’ve got some damn nice eye’s

And a face that freckles faster in the sun

Than an ice cube can melt

I also have thick thighs

An obnoxious laugh

And a verbous vocabulary

These are all traits that are accepted

So why can’t I accept the fact that

My heart beats quickly

And sometimes I have to take my shoes off

To balance my internal temperature

Why can’t I accept that

I’m not crazy

That there isn’t anything wrong with me.

It’s taken me a long time to get here

A longer time

Than I can portray in a poem

A selection of words

But I’m here.

I’m standing here.

And you know what?

I’m not crazy.

I accept that sometimes I get worried about missing my alarm

And so I don’t sleep at all

I accept that sometimes my adrenaline gets the best of me

And sometimes

Even picking where I go to dinner can be a life or death decision

The thing is though

I’ve made the decision to accept that

To accept that maybe my brain runs a 112 times faster

Than your average car

And I’ve come to accept that

I need to fix my thinking about myself

I’ve come to accept myself

So no longer will I feed into this fucked up notion

Of crazy

Or this ridiculous belief that

I am flawed

The only thing that’s flawed with me

Is that sometimes I eat too many twix bars

And that i swear a bit too much

Beyond that

I am accepting myself

I hope that you can accept that too. 

So much more

Six short weeks and I'll be handed a piece of paper that is supposed to solve all of life's problems -- a college education hidden beneath an ink and pulp mixture. A thin sliver to represent the past four years, 8 semesters and countless hours of my life. Another sheet to slip between the folds of card stock, shuffled into a drawer in hopes of showing my worth by the words upon it. These words, all of these damn words mean so much. But what about what I actually did? But what about the people's live's I've impacted, and those who have impacted mine? These thin slips cannot fully emulate the past four years. They cannot show the struggles of anxiety and fear, or the late nights filled with tears over those not worth them. They cannot dull the ache from missing those important people who actually are important and they cannot hold the joy over the new important people that have been inserted in my life. These stacks of colored ink spell out what will be left once I'm gone, but they will not be able to breathe the life of what the words actually mean into the air. These thin slips of paper are what I'm supposed to hold close, to remind me of these things I've 'accomplished' within these years. That's not what I want to leave behind though. I don't want to die and leave behind a small pile of ash to be buried within the soils of favorite places, with the various papers littered with my so called life floating their way to be recycled. These fragile accomplishments can only mean so much and for so long.  I don't want WHO I am to be lost in WHAT I have done. I want to leave behind something stronger than syllables and synonyms. I want to leave behind the passion behind the pixels, the fire within the fury of the want.  When they empty my house, I want them to feel my presence, and the undying urge of passion that accompanies my soul. When the drawers are shaken free from their stiff locks, I want the folders to be filled with so many words that they cannot be ignored. But I don't want the words to be meaningless. I want the words to be proof of the faith I put into the world. The faith I put my will into, to make the world something for everyone. I want the words to be a reminder of it all, not the only record left of what supposedly made me who I am. I want the words to show that who I am was just as much as what I have done. I don't want the words to be meaningless to those who search them. I want them to be reminders of the things that left a real mark, a scorch upon the green sculpted world we are supposedly living in. I want the words to hold meaning, and not just letters to represent forgotten experiences. I don't want papers to make up my life. I want to make a life outside of the papers, a life that can stand the wind swept plains of change. I want my life to be remembered by the papers, not told by them. My degree is not me. I am so much more than that. I will be so much more than that.

I'm having a helluva time finding the right words for right now. The right syllables to encase the fragile glass structure that is my current life. The words to lend their steel strength and protect my flower petal soul. The phrases to penetrate my calm exterior and exfoliate the scars of anxiety to let the new experiences leave their precious mark. Please, let me find the words to begin to live my wild and precious life, and share it with the world.

But maybe that's what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.

-Emily Giffin