mass.

miss last halloween.

douchebaggery.

swing.

eerie when you can't remember the last time you felt safe. when things remained stable long enough for you to take a breath and look beyond surviving the day. imagine it must be nice, having happy days segue into happy weeks, not waiting for the bottom to fall out beneath you.

sometimes the most basic of needs are the hardest to fill. cracks turn into caverns; drops to puddles, to lakes, to oceans. these things creep up on you, the anxiety, the fear. the sadness that makes laughter hurt because you have farther to fall when moods and tensions lighten. there were days, not as distant as they should be, when the fear made life into a heads or tails game. things were black and white. you either wanted happiness or death.

and it was a relief.

to see things so plainly. shutting of the compulsion to analyze diamonds until they became dust.

rio.

things.

cycle.

If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine

guns.

on tuesday morning, a 19 year old math student walked to the sixth floor of the library i work at and shot himself in the head with an ak47.

this was not a virginia tech school shooting.

this was a (very public, very dramatic) suicide.

we should not be discussing gun control, we should not be discussing legalizing guns on campus, we SHOULD be discussing why the hell so many kids are choosing to off themselves instead of reaching out for help. we SHOULD be discussing why the internet has become a means of validation for our countries youth, and why the desire to be famous has trumped the desire to be alive. we SHOULD be discussing how a campus of 50,000 students can't get mental health support, despite an entire building seemingly devoted to health services.

we SHOULD be discussing why the media is calling this a school shooting, instead of acknowledging his obvious intention to only harm himself.

instead, we've been talking about guns.

guns, and how legal it is to tote them around, is so beside the point it makes me want to scream.

kids are killing themselves all over the place and no one has stopped for a second to ask WHY.

it's a widely known fact that college aged students that havent had any noted emotional problems can, and do, develop severe issues triggered by stressors they previously never had to cope with. many students are on thier own for the first time, some dont have friends on campus, some are leaving boyfriends, some have never had a beer. the sheer amount of freedom, and lack of supervision is exciting and overwhelming. the dichotomy of being around seas of people, yet knowing no one, is overwhelming as well. college can be a really hard adjustment for most teens.

so what, they kill themselves?

no, not all the time...but they do: binge drink, have unprotected sex, try drugs, develop eating disorders, isolate themselves, become over-anxious, depressed, i could go on and on. but honestly, that isnt anything new and many dismiss all that normal "coming of age" as just that, normal. and to a certain extent it is.

but what about when it isnt? what about the girl so worried about the freshman 15 that she spends her days at the gym excersizing into anorexia? or the dude so freaked out and alienated by the 300 people in his intro lit class he just stops going out because "no one will miss him anyway" and eventually cant leave his room?

what do they do? shoot themselves? or want to? and why dont they even know something's wrong and get help? how'd they even get so fucked up in the first place? does it even matter?

does anyone even give a shit or care to ask about what is really going on beyond the headline?

there is some sick shit in our culture, and kids arent coping well with it.

we SHOULD be discussing that.