Normal is nothing but a boring and overrated town in Illinois

Rest in Peace, Your Individuality
It died the day you moved into the
neighborhood of sameness.
No color, only grey.
Nobody, nothing
stands out.
Everything, Everyone
Identical
The guards of the city gates
do not allow creativity to filter in.
A sign posted in city hall reads:
Creativity is banished from Normal
Five hundred dollar fine for anyone who sneaks it within the city walls

I remember the days before
Your individuality died
You would sing offkey showtunes loudly
and instead of walking like everyone else did,
you would run and spin and skip and jump
like an innocent child just having fun,
not caring who is near or what they might think.
Now, you walk in a careful rollstep
left foot first, then right
eternally fearing that you might make a wrong move in your mind,
that someone will find out.

I remember the days when your friends became annoyed
that you decided "Antidisestablishmentarianism"
was an underused word,
that it probably felt left out
so you would try to incorporate
it into as many sentences as you
could, ignoring the actual definition.
All of the time syou smiled to yourself
when your friends rolled their eyes
after you told them they smelled
like antidisestablishmentarianism.
I remember the laughter in your eyes
when they finally told you to stop,
but you ignored them and continued
in a more subtle way.
Now, you only speak with ambiguity:
words like whatever, stuff, and cool.
You always avoid adjectives,
careful not to sound smarter or more
creative than the next citizen
of sameness.

No longer an original, you have become a copy of a copy of a copy.
First, you became a little blurry
then slightly off center
twisted and turning
halfway off the page
eventually, your individuality faded away to nothing
Oh how I mourn who you once were
when you were yourself
and not everybody else

Transition

The autumn leaves:
Young love,
Solid for the seasons
Broken, Separated
Changing
The wind blowing
Forces the leaves
To separate
trampled on by passersby:
Forgotten

(This is still a work in progress)

Rejection.

Today, I realized how Jesus feels sometimes when He is ignored. He speaks and speaks to us, keeps on encouraging us to go on but many times, we argue with Him because we don't get our way or things aren't going as planned. Many are ungrateful...or selfish..but it is ultimately Him who feels the sting of rejection

The Poet Who Never Smiles

I wrote this while watching Indiana Jones today...inspired by finishing a group project early and flipping through our poetry book and noticing that the poets are never smiling.

There is no explanation
as to why
the poet will never smile

Many words a picture speaks
many words a poet speaks
in their expressionless image

Are they trying to appear--
serious?
passionate?
deep?

They might think nothing of
their lack of expression, but
could their distant look mean their big dreams?

But dear poet, you look so sad
Well-worn by the years
like those big dreams
are a distant memory

Tell me dear poet, why won't you smile?

my eyes
should be fixed
on You
but they're searching
searching
for something
something else
anything else
to satisfy
but You
are the only
one who satisfies

Cheesy Poetry

(Thanks for helping me come up with the plot, Jake haha...and this is an assignment)

Each day when you walk by me,
I long for you to look my
way; telling me that the mail
is for me. I can't help
but love the way
that you smile
and how precisely
you stack the folders
I love you.
Oh, how I long for us
to talk longer
about something
other than mail
I long for us to
walk hand in hand
around the office
pushing your mail cart-
-together

The Secret

What is it about keeping something to yourself that makes it feel like a boa constrictor has completely wrapped itself around your tongue? It feels like the pain from that consumes your entire being from the inside out. It's not necessarily a bad thing either, the pain from keeping it inside consumes my entire being. I just don't want people to know because in my head, everything will change. Maybe people will think I'm doing things for the wrong reasons. maybe they won't. I never would have ulterior motives, of course. I just care way too much, but can I really help it? I don't think I can...