Rose in Winter: February 2015

My veins are blue and connected
And every single bone in my brain is electric

—Jack White

The other night, I awoke brusquely at 2:48 a.m. My eyes literally snapped open. I don't even think I was dreaming, nor was there any specific sound that caused my mind to erupt at that moment. Suddenly, all my senses were itchy and restless. So I got up, looked out my window at the familiar cookie cutter houses, and up towards the sky. It was like Christmas all over again. The moon was staring straight at me, with his shadowy eyes and gaping pores. His beaming light and the window shades painted perpendicular stripes across my wall, and I saw myself climbing them like a latter to my ceiling. The moon was dripping his glowy light all over my room at 2:48. How dare he. Clean it up now. I said. I'm sleepy. But the moon didn't. In fact, he vomited his blueish hue on my face in response to that. So I sat by my window, stared at the moon, wishing I could spew blue light into people's lonely rooms at 2:48 in the morning like he does. But I can't, so I curled up on the floor, let the moon dye my knotted hair, and let my mind drift to its own reality; a bright place in between the dark stripy shadows on my wall.

In this place...

All I see are flowers. I see every color of the rainbow blooming an atrocious masterpiece of velvety petals. Every time I breathe I get sick from the sweet, beautiful bouquets that decorate every possible place I glance. I see the flowers sprouting from the dirty carpet at school. I see them bleeding through my stereo, blossoming in each teeny black hole of the speakers. I see them drooping from the ceiling, manifesting in my dresser and making my pillow a living bush. They creep out of traffic lights and tangle the cars so much they disappear and become moving gardens. They flourish through the letters on my keyboard and tighten around my fingers as I type. But they smell and look so nice, so I let them. My entire world is a garden, and I'm a flea, basking in the swallowing embrace of a single rose. I drown in the color red.

All I hear is buzzing. I hear people talking, worrying, thinking, yelling, smirking, whispering each minute of the day. I absorb the meaningless words like a sponge soaking up sour poison. I'm getting more and more irritated and sick from the ch-ch-chatter all day long. I bloat from the poison as it fills my belly. I want to roar at the sky and say isn't there more than this? I hear cries of stress so painful that I feel like the chalkboard that someone took their fingernails to. Buzz buzz buzz.

All I feel is dry. I'm flaking. I itch at my soul and it sheds layers of past guilt, desperately wanting to be new. But sometimes, I tape that dead skin back on. I can't seem to let go of that part of me. She comes back sometimes when I least expect it and tells me that it was better that way. And so I itch even more. And tape. And peel. I need lotion.

And in the middle of the night, in the dripping shadows of the moon, when my heart is in the most raw form of itself...

All I want is Christ. I yearn, I thirst. Sometimes it aches. When I get so caught up in the world, in other people's opinions and affections, I wander through dark forests and bruise myself, thinking all the while that I'm going the right way. I blind myself to the flowers he sends, the roses in winter that I step right on without acknowledging. He could be dumping stars in a heaping, rhinestone pile right outside my door and I wouldn't know because I'm too busy looking in the mirror or stressing about my future.

I need a renewed sense of truth and what really matters in this life. I'm tangled in the unraveling veins that go from my brain to my heart, and I'm having a hard time distinguishing which one is which. My heart thinks it's my brain half the time. I really should be doing more homework, but what do I do? I write. I really should be calling my friend, but what do I do? I write. This is me right now. I'm a living, breathing poem. I make no sense and have no structure. I say stupid things and don't always look nice. But I hope, and I pray, that these words can make you feel something.

I think sometimes (a lot of times) we feel achingly ordinary. I know I'm ordinary. I wear ordinary clothes, I take the expected classes of an ordinary junior, I act normally (in public, for the most part) and lead an ordinary lifestyle. But to be completely honest, I cringe at the word ordinary. It sounds like order, and I don't like to think of my life as one that follows some blueprint of an order-nary 17-year-old. Unfortunately, at this point, I still need to go to school, wear clothes, and keep somewhat of a good reputation, so going completely berserk and yolo-ing my life to death isn't really the path I have in mind. But I do want to feel like I have a divine purpose again. I want to remind myself that my mind and soul are completely un-ordinary and dance on the fraying edges of insanity at times. I like things that are weird. I like listening to Jack White and reading books of poetry I find at the library. I crave inspiration. Even the simplest and most "ordinary" things, if I let them, can become the wildest and most beautiful pieces of art.

On that ordinary weeknight (or morning?) at 2:48, I found that divine inspiration. Jesus woke me up and showed me the potbelly moon, reminding me that I'm called to walk among the splintery stars. He will answer my wild prayers. I don't know how yet, but he will. My ordinary self will water the parched dirt I walk on each day with the joy that bottles within me. Like the moon, maybe I will be able to drip hopeful light into lonely rooms. I may seem ordinary to the world around me, but my heart is a thicket of tangled hope.

So be on the lookout for divine inspiration. Maybe that will be my goal this Lent (which begins this week already...goodness gracious.) I'll try to see things through heavenly glasses. I'll genuinely smile at people who annoy the crap out of me. I'll look in the mirror and resolve to love the girl I see. I'll take breaks from homework and instead of checking my phone, I'll step outside or do yoga. Most of all, I'll keep trying to be brave. I haven't forgotten my new years resolution yet :)

Society may label us as ordinary, but that word sizzles away in the midst of the fascinating souls I see everyday. Fall Out Boy had a point. We are wild, we are like young volcanoes. We don't belong to the world. We are inspired by angels, and they are inspired by our crazy lives.