Falling Leaves

(I first wrote this when I was around 13 or 14. It’s a bit disorienting to think that I was of the mind to write something like this, but this oldie is still a goodie.)

These green leaves

In their impetuous youth

Would spend their year of life

On watching humans live

The lives they never could

It was a wonder seeing them

Them, showing off their longevity

To choose their ways, to choose their fates

To weave their strings of life themselves

When leaves are blown adrift in wind

It’s helpless to resist, they say

In spring they envy cherry blossoms too

Off white small petals that would die in weeks

But even if it sounds too crazy, know

That blossoms rave so bravely in death

That their plight’s much more celebrated, cared

And have the simple leaves been loved before?

For leaves, they’re doomed

For brevity

For nothing in

Their future but

Repeating their

Colossal faults

Till end 

Then they’re

Tumbling

Down to

Earth

Bobbing and weaving and dancing through the air

Trying to be flames

With their brittle, brown carcass

To shine before the end

To roots centuries old

Bony and formal and cold

That leaves had always flown above before

They were weaving for a new fate.

But now it lies dead.

All because of what they were.

Not even to see the crescendo of freeze.

Leaves Fall” by Kelly Ishmael/ CC0 1.0

Finals

As I have said a couple of times I hate taking tests because I am like really bad at them and it is so degrading and stressful. Out of all my classes I am most worried about my chem final because I am so bad at chem and it is so hard. I have done terribly on every chem test I have taken so combining all that stuff into one test is so scary. Last year I did better on my finals than I expected but still this year I am in harder classes so it is going to be intense. Also, all my grades are on the brink so these tests will either make or break my grades which is terrifying. I slacked so much this semester and I am just now trying to make a comeback. Hopefully, I can clutch up and bring my grades up but that’s probably not going to happen so whatever. At least once I am done with my finals it will be summer and I won’t have to worry about school for a few months.

pc https://ovsjournalists.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/06d5f-file.jpg

Bad/Good Days

I’ve always thought of happiness as something that comes and goes too easily and quickly. Some of the bad days feel like they will never end, and it also feels like good days will not come again. When the good days would come all I would be thinking about is how they are only temporary. I’ve learned that ups and downs are sort of what life is about. How would I know what a good day is like if I hadn’t ever had a bad day? I’ve come to learn that we cannot always control situations, and how they work out, but we can control how much we let things affect us. Taking a step back and thinking, “Hm…does this thing really have to ruin my day?” can be a simple enough thing, but implementing it into life really can help you stop overthinking and enjoy the possibility of the best day ever!

pc:https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSJa9ltMULhfWJEdJJs2APoOYzRGE8YrfcsrboNTckjZA&s

The words in my head

I wonder what people would think of me if I said the words that are always burning through my head. I wonder if my friends would resent me if they knew what I was really thinking. I feel trapped inside my skull and I am always trying to claw my way out. The voice in my head is so loud and powerful that I sleep only to silence it. I feel like I am trapped in my body with my anxiety and depression and ADHD. They scream at me and each other constantly. I hide from them within myself although I can’t get away. I fight them for every word that comes out of my mouth every letter that I write and song I sing. I don’t let them come up to the surface because they are not who I am. I understand that they are no reflection of me, but they live inside my body like another personality. I feel as though they are crawling me towards death and I use all of my strength to hold them back. I fight constantly to stay in the moment.

Italy

 My favorite part about this summer is going to Italy. Whenever I go there, I feel a sense of peace that I don’t feel anywhere else. I stay at my Italian stepmom’s family house in Puglia and her family is so nice to be around and always makes my trip so enjoyable. One of my favorite things about going there is that I can eat an insane amount of food, and gain no weight. The food there is processed and filled with chemicals like most food in America and whenever I overeat in Italy, I never feel sick. Whenever I come back home, food makes me feel sick for a week because I become used to the food in Italy. I start my mornings in Italy by eating lots of fruit, cake, and cookies for breakfast. I eat an insane amount when I’m there. I probably eat ten meals a day. Typically during the day, we will either go to the beach, swim in the pool or go out to town. The only issue is that it gets so hot over the summer so if I’m not at the beach or pool, I need to stay inside. At night, we occasionally go out to town or go to my stepmoms friends hotel for dinner. I have been to Rome, Puglia, and Bari but this summer will be the first time I’m going to Venice and the Dolomites. My stepmom doesn’t like Venice because it’s just filled with water and there really isn’t much to do, but we are only going there for one night and I’m just happy to see it. The Dolomites will be fun but I know that my dad will make me hike all day in the heat which will be intense.

Positano coast Italy“/ CC0 1.0

What Is on my poor mind?

I only realized last night that I’m truly graduating from school. All this time, it seemed like some kind of joke, and that next year would be just the same as the last. However, at one in the morning on Thursday, I suddenly understood that it wasn’t true and that I would never be a schoolgirl again. This realization shocked me deeply, and I cried until 3 a.m. How did it happen that 12 years of my life flew by so unnoticed? And if these 12 years flew by like one day, does that mean my whole life will pass just as quickly?

In the last two weeks, everything more or less stable in my life over the past few years has ended. The video game I’ve been playing since I was 12 ended. This silly game served as a marker of stability in my chaotic life, and it ended right after my 18th birthday, how ironic, isn’t it? What seemed to be a childish amusement that gave me a sense of comfort for years ended the moment I turned 18. By the way, yes, I’m now 18 years old, and that has also been a factor in my moral decay these last few weeks. I CAN’T ACCEPT THE FACT THAT I AM NOW AN ADULT WHO NO LONGER HAS A FAVORITE TOY AND WHO IS NO LONGER IN SCHOOL. It’s a terrible feeling to know that all the comfort and the circle of acquaintances I’ve created for myself in another country, day by day for years trying to keep everything stable, will soon collapse like a house of cards and I will have to create it all over again. In short, I am frustrated and don’t know what to do about it.

pc https://i.pinimg.com/564x/87/fa/af/87faaf37636be70e6a5ca232d0a65755.jpg

PSAT

The PSAT was so stressful as I have mentioned before I am not a good test taker and the format of the PSAT scares me. The questions start off the same and depending on if you get them correct they either get easier or harder. There are two sections math and reading, the reading is first and the math follows after that. I was doing fine during the reading section I got a little bored and sometimes just picked random answers because I didn’t want to read anymore. The math section was so hard and my questions started getting so easy I knew I was cooked. I recently got my score back and keep in mind the test is graded out of 1600 and I got a 1000 so goodnight. Each of the sections are graded out of 760 on my English I got a 540 which is ok. On math just like I predicted I got cooked and got a 460. Genuinely terrified to take the Sat and I hope I go to a test-optional school because my scores are so bad it’s not even funny.

PC:”Student School” by Tamarcus Brown/ CC0 1.0

I can’t do anymore school work

All school year, doing my school work has been a difficult task for me to complete, but I always got my work in on time. Over the past month of school, I have become so delusional and I tell myself that I will do my homework all night, but once I’m tired, I tell myself that peace and self-care matter much more than doing my work. I still end up going to bed late every night because I tell myself that I will just do my homework later in the night. All of these assignments are catching up to me as the school year ends and I’m honestly just ready to end the school year now. Some of my teachers haven’t put my assignments into the gradebook so I don’t even know how much work I’m missing and it’s terrifying. I want to end the school year with good years but I am having so much trouble with getting myself to care about school. All I want is for it to be summer so I can sleep all day and not have to worry about my schoolwork constantly.

School Books” by Krzysztof%20Puszczy%u0144ski/ CC0 1.0

Camping

I went on a camping trip and the whole experience was very upsetting. It was my first backpacking trip and my trip was supposed to be from Wednesday to Friday. We left Wednesday morning and made it to the beginning of the trail. I assumed the hike to the campsite would take about an hour and a half. Twenty minutes into the walk, my shoes were completely wet because we had to walk through four rivers with our heavy backpacks. Then, I face-planted two times in two minutes, so I was already injured and filthy. It was boiling and I was losing circulation in my arms because of my bag’s weight. There were so many bugs and I got so many bites. After about five hours, we finally made it to our campsite. It was still so hot and I was exhausted. The next day, we had a little breakfast and then went on a quick walk to a river. We stayed there basically all day and once we came back to our campsite we noticed that there was a forest fire smell. Twenty minutes later, the teachers on our camping trip told us that we had to leave because there was a fire. Quickly, all of us had to pack up our stuff and we left the campsite by 5:30. We were terrified that we weren’t going to leave the trail until 10:30 because it took us five hours to the day before. We walked fast and made it by 7:30. Once I got back to my dorm room, I was exhausted and so drained. My body had bruises, mosquito bites, and cuts. This camping trip was an extremely draining experience and I’m so glad that it’s over.

Tent Camping” by Ben Duchac/ CC0 1.0

46

Usually, I try to write about something worthwhile, about my thoughts, feelings, or events that happened to me, and which would be interesting to share. But today is not that day, today, I want to talk about all sorts of nonsense that has been on my mind lately.

46 days. After precise calculations, I realized that I have exactly 46 days left to go to school. It seems like this number should be much larger, but definitely not in my case. I am the most vivid case of senioritis you can find on planet Earth. Immediately after receiving the acceptance letter from the university I wanted, unexpectedly even to myself, I just stopped worrying about what happens at school. I am absolutely calm about not doing homework, and it doesn’t bother me much. I won’t lie, I never really liked the process of studying in an American school, and the only reason why I truly strived and learned subjects was my admission to the university; now that the goal is achieved, the motivation is completely gone. In my case, trying to find opportunities to reduce my days spent in school buildings, I discovered that some camps take away as much as 5 days! I signed up for many, which significantly reduced my time spent at school this semester. I am glad that I have very little time left until the end of school. I won’t lie, I will be the happiest person on graduation day, during the ceremony I will definitely be crying, but not out of sadness but from overwhelming happiness.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is my sleep. Lately, I’ve been having terrible problems with sleep. I wake up every hour at night, and if I’m unlucky enough to start thinking about something that bothers me, then I can’t sleep for a couple of hours simply because I can’t stop thinking. It bothers me, but I can’t do anything about it.

pc: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b4/1a/31/b41a319f9761af679eb450755ec3bb16.jpg