The Back of Sailboat (lyrics to an original song)

You’re drifting away
Across this dark sea;
With nothing to say
My words are empty.

So I wave from the shore
As you slowly shrink farther, and farther away
I’m left wanting more
But I know there’s no way I could get you to stay

Now’s the time to say goodbye
But, my throat closes over the words I would say.
And I would just sit and cry,
But, I know I would only just get in your way

So I bid farewell
To the bright, sunnier, happy days,
As I watch your sail
Slip into the horizon’s haze.

Now’s the time to say goodbye
But, my throat closes over the words I would say.
And I would just sit and cry,
But, I know I would only just get in your way

So I wave from the shore…
Left wanting more…
So I bid farewell…
As I watch your sail…

You’re drifting away
Across this dark sea
With nothing to say
My words are empty

So farewell, my love, my heart
I hope you know you will always be
part of me.

My fondest memory.

The Silent Storm

You suffer in silence

Mouth closed, eyes turned away

I suffer no pretense

That I know what to say

But I cannot bear to see such pain

Such glorious sunlight purged by rain

So tell me love, what can I do

To make the rainbow appear?

Because my heart aches too

When yours will not speak, nor will it hear.

If you could only see the face

The one you hide beneath your hands

Only then could I plead my case

Of how I long to understand.

A broken heart cannot mend

If its grievances are not aired

So my apologies I send

If it so be that I have erred.

I profess to you my dearest love

And try to kiss the tears away

I try to hold you close enough

And sing lullabies as the trees sway

But none seem to reach your deafened ears

And I cannot think of how to cheer you.

My heart reaches out until it tears

Yet still remaining faithful and true.

A dark purple oasis shifts

And to my soul it sings

And my spirit, it lifts

And takes flight on borrowed wings.

Whisper your love softly my dear

So that I may sleep in peace tonight.

Put off the thoughts of the coming year

And all the endings that are insight.

So have your space if that’s what you need

Take your time, your soul to feed

But if it so be when you are through

Chasing the dreams you must pursue

And still could see me in your view,

My heart will always belong to you.

And why do these words flow so well

When I am sitting pensive and alone

Yet, graceful as acme weights, they fell

And only written can they atone.

I wish I could just open your mind

Or at least open your mouth

In case I am wasting my time

And can still leave proud.

So speak my gentle fool

Speak so that I may know

What it is that I must do

So you will not cry so.

Open your mouth and speak

For I cannot read your mind.

Has your love for me grown weak?
Or do you need the help of time?

I cannot fix what I cannot see

So open your heart up to me,

I can help to set you free

But only if you want to be.

If not, remain a statue, hard and cold

Despite my efforts and oaths so bold.

For a heart simply cannot be told

To whom its allegiance will be sold.

And if from me your heart is passed,
I will try to stay the bitter tears

And only lament that it passed so fast

When I hoped to hold it for the years.

But for you, I want what’s best

And if you must leave, I will let go

I may stammer and protest,

But your exit I will not slow.

Or maybe I’m just a pessimist

And this is not your intent at all…

This love does, in fact, exist

And I helplessly fall.

What is Love? (feel free to start singing obnoxiously while reading this)

I frequently tell my friends that I am not an “I love you” whore… While this is far from a classy title or way to describe things, I know that I am not the kind of person to say those three special little words without meaning it. Love is being able to be more yourself with someone than you are by yourself. Love is giving someone your heart, but it doesn’t matter because you can replace it with theirs. Love is looking into a mirror and thinking nothing of it for your whole life, until you meet the one person who makes your reflection seem empty without them by your side. He should be the first thing you think about when you wake up, and the last thing you think of when you go to sleep. He should not merely accept your faults and quirks, but love you for them. You should feel at home in their arms, no matter where you are. You should be able to trust them. They should be the only one you see, or if you do compare people, it should only be to see just how lucky you are to have someone so wonderful. Love is putting someone else’s needs before your own. Love is giving someone your last sour gummy worm. Love is being able to sit and watch movies for hours with someone and never get bored. He should look at me when I’m at my grossest and be able to sincerely tell me that I am beautiful. Love is barely contained in public. It should be bubbling underneath the skin, ready to reveal itself in one meaningful glance or subtle hand-holding under the table. It cannot be contained, and must occasionally be yelled from the rooftops. Love is finding the sight of them more wonderful than anything else in the universe. Love is having your sentences frequently interrupted by kisses. Love is imperfect, as are those that embrace it. We can only hope to have a chance at the magic. A chance to grasp at the stars, sprayed like shattered glass in the dark oblivion, and either achieve the height and glory of owning a star, or burn and fall hard. We cannot give up our quest or else what are we? What are we without one another? Our hearts were created to be given away and to break occasionally. It is through the heartbreak that someone else gets the chance to hold it and stitch it back together again. Love is freedom and prison. It is beauty and acceptance of the homely aspects of someone. Love is music. Love is chocolate. Love is a waterfall. Love is forgiveness. Love is independence and dependence. Love is fire. Love is animate. Love is pain and healing. Love is flowing lava. Love is science. Love is psychology. Love is clockwork. Love is a gravel road. Love is being able to put up with someone’s bad jokes and pointless stories forever. It is selfless. It is divine. It is the ultimate goal of everything we, as humans, do. It is the closest thing to magic we have.

Rant About Love at First Sight

In many of Shakespeare’s plays the concept of love at first sight is quite frequently put into place. Romeo is completely and totally heart-broken over Rosalind and is persuaded to go to a party, despite his depressed state, and there he falls madly and passionately in love with Juliette at first sight even though merely moments before he was inconsolable over a different girl. This is also found in Othello and Desdemona, Hamlet and Ophelia, and now in Act III of Love’s Labour’s Lost, between all three of the Princess’s attendants and the King’s the lords. One case in particular is Berowne’s sudden passionate outburst at the very end of the Act, in which he laments over his love and that he cannot see her, though he has only met her at most twice before.
            While it is plausible that because plays are so concentrated and condensed, love cannot develop gradually and thus must be catalyzed for the entertainment of the audience, I also believe that in Shakespeare’s day things did move a tad more quickly than the prolonged and extensive courting that characterized society just a little later. Berowne moans of his love, saying it is a “plague” that suddenly befell him, but still has major consequences and suffering. Earlier in the act, Moth, the page boy, expresses his disbelief that love could take hold so easily of his master, who had fallen in love with Jacquenetta. Thus, Shakespeare presents the two contrasting and conflicting views on love at first sight and leaves the reader to decide whether it is plausible or not, though making each man’s burning passion quite convincing in its embellishments.
            Personally, I am honestly a sucker for romance and for such sweet things, and I would love to believe in love at first sight, but I also want the person I love to love me for who I am, not what I looked like the first split-second he saw me. Love is a gradual process, even here at Brigham Young University where it seems that the sort of thing described in the book seems to happen ubiquitously around campus. I can’t help but feel suspicious and speculative when I view couples getting married after two weeks of courting, especially in a society in which marriage is for time and all eternity.
            Two weeks is not long enough to find the person with whom you will stay in love with for forever, in the literal sense of the word. You have to find someone who knows your quirks and your flaws and weirdness, and not only puts up with them, but loves you for them. I find it extremely hard to believe that this can be found in one single conversation with someone, as happened with Berowne and Rosaline and Armado and Jacquenetta. Loving someone is appreciating everything about them: their voice, their smell, their touch, their personality, their interests, their annoyances, their habits, their thoughts, and every little thing that makes them endearing or drives you crazy. These things cannot be determined by mere, flirtation and cannot be seen from across a room. I would prefer to think that love is much more substantial than that.

Sensory Description Exercise

The broken spiral paper lays splintered in a dying, tangled mess, waiting with expecting fragility to be carried off by the slightest breeze. Anxious feet hang and twitch. Right. Then left. Then right. A spasmodic metronome. As my eyes lift to the deserted front desks, the light dims to better reveal an angelic sprite prancing across a green and grey wood. Behind this ghost-like apparatus, nonsensical notes are splattered across the glossy board like ice cream dropped off a three story window onto a sidewalk. The light above me flickers only enough for my careful eyes to notice. I watch a stranger’s hand scurry across a notebook, attempting to pin down every word that flies haphazardly out of my professor’s mouth as he paces back and forth across the classroom. At first glance this room would appear spacious. Not all desks filled, there is no overwhelming presence of the professor competing for personal space, no massive movements, but at closer glance every inch is abuzz with life. Finally I see my own life, bond in light blue, tabbed, and divided in an organized manner, but once opened, crammed with to –do lists, homework, dates, service, relief society activities, birthdays, and other days of note, and past reminders gleefully obliterated once they are accomplished. I see the many scribbled tasks that are left for me to struggle to finish.
                As he is, by day, a psychiatrist, my professor’s voice is the soothing blanket placed over shock victims to soothe them. It floats across, a lullaby, as I struggle to keep my eyes open. The familiar scratchings and tappings appear ubiquitously across the room, hamsters digging in their cages to attempt to surface some new bit of food or substance that had not yet been found or re-found recently. A constant buzzing manifests itself to my upper left. The longer it drones and complains, the more it is ignored and I cannot determine its source. Though, if I were to guess, it seems to emanate from the light and the air in perfect harmony and tempo, fluctuating in parallels. Occasionally a cough or a sneeze will startle my ears, well-placed cymbal strikes to keep the audience awake during a symphony.
                As I write, I can feel the hard, familiar pen, gripped tightly in order to direct or guide it along the paths I wish it to go. The paper glides smoothly underneath my hand. My other hand is placed under my leg, scrounging the last remnants of warmth from my thighs covered in my thick, soft, slightly baggy jeans. The cold air dances across my bare arms, making the hair and skin stand up here and there. It pricks me gently, like a needle of ice. As I lean back against my slightly-too-curved chair, I can feel the inconsistent lump of the hood of my light jacket. It is a rough oval against my back, contrasting against the quadrilateral imperialism of the rest of the room.
                As I take a quick drink from my bottle, the sweet, yet pungent scent of cranberry grape fills my nostrils and lingers like a powerful after-image etched into my eyelids after looking at the sun. I rest my head on my notebook and smell the familiar olfaction of pen and paper. This scent is so familiar that it has become the equivalent of a control group as I compare other scents, as I am not only a full-time student, but also an English major who is as well acquainted with paper and words as the face of a father and mother are to a small child. The stale classroom air has a slightly metallic tinge to it. It smells used, remanufactured, recycled, and trapped in this room in a basement being constantly tunneled in but never from a fresh source. By the time it reaches this room it has long since been dead and replaced with a metallic, false case to carry it through anyway.
                The flavor of watered-down and sickly sweet juice, fermenting on my tongue, lays like a thin, smothering coat across every inch of my mouth. I place the end of my pen into my mouth for the billionth time and chew the hard, tasteless plastic squish softly between my teeth. It slips, cutting slightly into my gums, releasing the tiny, salty, red fountain that was waiting beneath its surface. This steady stream is warm and slightly metallic, reassuring me of my humanity. I have no interest in placing paper into my mouth, though I sit and imagine that it would give up all resistance, and either tear into stringy, soft pieces or curl into a small wet ball with a slightly salty taste.

Who We Are (lyrics to an original song)

Dedicated to Alex Shields

It’s funny how things change so fast
As we sit right here and review the past
And regrets and “what if’s” run through your mind.
You fix your gaze upon the stars
That shine on our jagged scars
But if we knew it all, I’m sure we would find:

(Chorus)
That every tear that fell to the ground,
Helped grow the love that we have now.
Every blow that knocked us down,
Put me in your arms.

Every time we felt alone
Or that we had to stand on our own
Those were the times that we have grown
And become who we are.

Now your heart and mine make quite a pair
And for once, in your arms I’m not scared;
A hand in mine has never felt so right.
Your crystal eyes leave me breathless
And I am left hanging on every last kiss
And babe, now I’ve truly seen the light.

(Chorus)

And I don’t know
If you’re aware
That sometimes I just
Stop and stare
Wondering how someone
Like you could care
For a girl like me.
I guess I’m just lucky.

And every tear that fell to the ground
Helped grow the love that we have now
Every blow that knocked me down
Put me in your arms.

And now every time that I feel alone,
I reach for you and love, I’m home
And for all the love you’ve shown,
I thank my lucky stars

They put me in your arms
And made us who we are.

I Believe in Christ

Today I was able to sing a song in Sacrament meeting that was called “Inside” and though I choked up a bit and my voice gave out almost entirely at one point, it was one of the greatest experiences I have had in a long while. Here are the lyrics to the song:

Lyrics

How can I know deep in my heart
That what I'm hearing now is truth
Oh I believed as a child, but I'm questioning now
Give me strength as I turn to you

I pray I can find answers I seek
While the workd keeps shouting at me
As I sift through the noise will I recognize
What my soul truly believes

Chorus:
Inside, I feel a voice
Beckoning me,
Pulling me down to my knees
I pray for strength
To use my faith
To take my doubts and fears away

I know that you're here
I trust in your love
To surround me with your peace
As I'm thirsting to find
I know in my mind
That through you I can drink up relief

Chorus
Chorus

As light unfolds my heart awakes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XuISwlf6xg

She does a much better job than I ever could...

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Moving out on your own can make you rethink things and I love that EFY has a song about overcoming doubt. I love my church so much because you’re allowed to feel doubts and wonder and ponder and figure things out for yourself. That is pretty much what we are about, personal revelation. We are not considered slackers or sinners because we have moments when it is tough to have faith, instead overcoming that trial gives us more faith then we had in the first place.
            To me, this is also a great argument to those who say that I was born and brainwashed into this religion. Growing up I have always made it a point to have my own testimony and make sure that I believed what I was acting upon. I have attended several other churches and enjoyed them, but they did not hold the true spiritual feeling I got from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has given me. From the very beginning when people are taught about our church, we invite them to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and find out for themselves if it is the word of God. We do not force our religion on anyone, or at least we try not to. There will always be some members of our Church who are not exactly ideal examples of what we believe, but I beg you, if you are looking to find real answers to what these mysterious Mormons believe, talk to me or the missionaries or even just check the site mormon.org and it will tell you everything you need to know. I love my Saviour with everything I am and his sacrifice so that I may have a chance at salvation is the greatest gift I have ever received. He is my older, perfect brother and everything I am or ever hope to be I have to attribute to Him. I would be nothing without him and I know that He lives and loves each and every one of us  individually. Each of our names went through his mind as He suffered in Gethsemane and blood dripped from every pore. With his stripes we are and were healed, as the blood of our sins coursed down his back. “What greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.” I believe in Christ.