Sketching (2)

I'm sitting on the couch,
But the internet isn't holding my attention,
And I can't breathe right again.
So I shut down
And stand up.

Eye-catchers become increasingly hard to come by in a familiar space.
People whose secrets you know are no good.
Not as models

So I won't be sketching people today.
But how about flowers?
Wilting roses
Slowly curling over, onto themselves.
If you wish to deny that all beauty dies
At least agree that
All things beautiful disappear.

When exactly do the dark pink edges
Begin to go black?
It happens so fast that the difference is obvious
But I can't see it happening.
I never can.
Am I the only one?
the only one blind to transformation?
I can't see the change right in front of me.

That's frightening.
What if everything is changing all around me?
What if my friend's are twisting and turning,
My family molding and morphing,
Into something completely different
Right before my eyes?

Things change.
Two words like any others.
But She walks. just doesn't have the same effect on my.
Or maybe it does.
Just not as obviously.

Change is hard for me.
Difficult to adjust to.
I don't like normal; I like same.
If I was ever to be given a super power,
It could never be the ability to manipulate time.
Because I would freeze time,
Sit in a corner with my eyes closed,
And stay there forever.

Grade 7,
I wrote a story.
A start-of-a-novel, only 4 chapters in.
About a world of people who live the same day
Over and over again
Inside their heads
With no recollection of the day before.
And one boy
Who walks without a though, with a mind.

They say you always put yourself into your characters.
I never thought about who I was.
But living inside myself sounds safe.
And safe is good.
Isn't that what we've been taught?

Vulnerability
Seems like too big a word to mean such a fragile state of being.
Fragile.
That's more accurate..
Isn't it?

You'd think a wilting rose would be fragile.
But it's not.
It's vulnerable,
Out in the open.

I once wrote a poem
About a rose and a snake and a star.
And about not knowing who I wanted to be.
The rose was too open and loving and there.
The snake was too violent and vulgar and vile.
The star was good; detached, above, and out of harm's way.
The star was safe.

So is that what I want to be? Safe?
Is that why I want to run away, to where no one knows me?
Not me or my name or my story.
Is it because I've never been so anonymous? A novelty?
Or is it because I think anonymity will keep me safe?
Safe from others. Safe from myself.

The rose allows itself to be out there.
Vulnerable, life in your hands.
I either offer myself to you in my entirety or hide myself away, becoming what you need me to be.
Is vulnerability the balance in between the extremes?
The extremes of myself?
Do I need to be a little more like my sketch of the rose,
And stray away from safe?
Maybe.