I’m going into high school in August. At the end of the year, students from my class desperately wanted to go to high school. They wanted a change. Three years of middle school, here’s your consolation prize, kids: four years of high school. Happy, happy day. And it was. Because for once, I was running with the herd. I couldn’t wait to be a mature freshman. Now, i’m having nightmares about forgetting the Pythagorean theorem. Not cool. I’m afraid. Afraid that I’ll get lost, that I won’t keep up with my classes, that the teachers will hate me. I’m afraid.

I look back on my blog, which was started more than a year ago, and everything seems recent. I feel like my life is rushing by me, things are changing and I am never going to catch up. I will never be this young again. Soon, I’ll be getting a job, parading for colleges, and being an all “A” student just isn’t going to cut it. I’m going have to change for high school: change how I act, change how I spend my time, change my gym uniform. I never used to see the world this way, as a conundrum of what has changed and what was going to. I’ve never been so confused over how to proceed. I just relied on my parents to make sure I had everything I needed. But I’m turning fifteen in October and the time to be needy and childish is trickling to an end. It’s time for a change.

I used to be great friends with my sister. Now, we argue more often than have fun. I didn’t notice it happening. I didn’t notice things changing. And I know I sound like a girl who didn’t know her boyfriend would break up with her, but I never saw it coming, and now I don’t know how to fix it. I can’t go out and find a new sister after crying on my friends shoulders. I don’t always like change. I don’t always want it. Denise says: “If you don’t like how something is going in your life, change it.” When I asked: “What about the things you can’t change?” She told me: “Wait until you can”. I can change things between my sister and me, I know I can. But I was stupid. Because I never asked Denise: “What if I don’t know how?”

I have a cockatiel. A lovely pearl cockatiel with gray and white and yellow feathers. I am ashamed to say, I don’t spend a lot of time with him. I suck as a pet owner. Lyra is going to live for thirty years. I think it’s time that I change my ways.

I bet you all are wondering why I’m writing all this. My blog, for months now has been composed of Six Word Sundays, and when I was feeling really creative, a Six word Monday, or even *gasp* a Six word Sunday (Belated). Exciting. So, this is for all the empty words, empty weeks, empty posts. I don’t want to be a burnt out blogger and I’m not going to  let my laziness keep me from succeeding.

It’s time for a change.

A change that will work for me.

A change that will be un-debatably for the better.

My change is starting with this post.

This is my 645 word Wednesday.

My Metaphor

I was dreaming

I went to the knitting closet

and opened it

to find my nest

of yarn balls

bright eggs

neat

perfect

Every one

But, thats not true

One stands out

Different

In a bad way

filled with

thorns

twists

tangles

I pull the ends

work loose the thorns

unravel the knots

until my fingers bleed and ache

It’s no use.

It won’t be flat

It won’t be like the rest

It will always be different

In a bad way.

They say dreams

are reflections

of what you feel

or what bothers you

They represent things.

The tangled yarn?

I think it’s me.

See? What did I tell you? Poetry just isn’t something I can do. Not well, at least. Thank goodness we never got around to the project.

I sat in history class, listening to Mr. L drone on about something I don’t care about, while Ms. D smiles and nods like he’s saying something profound. I connect the dots on the ceiling panels to make images of tiger faces, rearing horses, sleeping dogs, huge monsters. They leap out of the ceiling in a waterfall of earthy brown and gray furs, and carry me away in a sea of warm, furry bodies. I turn into a wolf and join a pack, soft, furred paws tamping down the summer-sweet smelling loam of the forest, leaves coalescing into an emerald tapestry above my head. Shrubs cling like terrified children to the age-cracked trunks of ancient trees, the smell of deer and rainwater scent the air. I come to a stream, clear and mountain fresh, spring grasses, new and green, sway to the music of a quiet wind along side the water. Suddenly, I’m a horse, but it doesn’t feel sudden, or jarring, it just is. The pack melts into the woods like so many shadows, hungry amber eyes winking like golden fireflies in the stray sunlight that unwittingly wanders into the trees. I change course, trotting alongside the meandering stream, until I reach a field, filled with bold jade grass, brilliant with fireworks of clusters of wildflowers. It is dotted with bluebells, daffodils, sunflowers which turn rapt faces toward the sun, monitoring its golden chariot ride across the sky. The stream feeds itself into a pool that shimmers blue like a morpho butterfly’s wing, rife with a promise of cool relief in the heat of the afternoon. Having gotten here, I am myself again, and I lie in the sweet, sunburned grass, and feel the golden beams of sunlight caress my upturned face with the delicacy of a feather from a Pegasus’s wing, let my hair fall in riotous tangles about my head like a caramel colored halo, and just breathe in the delicate perfume of wildflowers in this place untouched by people, untouched by the poisons that humans seem determined to leak into this planet.

I have just realized that I’ve written another “springtime”-y post. More likely than not, it will snow tomorrow because I’ve jinxed the good weather. Again. Anyway, that was a pretty good dream. In fact, it was almost cliched in how cheerful and upbeat it was. Darn! I’m having stereotypical dreams! Kill me now…