(Your) SILENCE IS EASY.

I'm sittin in the library--
My hair is rainy today, it waves in slow remembrance of my walk home last night.
If you knew me, you'd see it and remember that this is what I'm like after the rain.
I am a slow pulse, the afterbeat of that staccato thought.

The music is in me-- it will not pass.
God.

My laptop is at home, 19 pages of words.
They're ready for me.
Instead, I am here in front of this screen.
10 academic pages call my attention.
I am not ready for them.
Why can't my paper be about how I've felt for the past 3 days?
Please can I just turn in my journal? It's better.

I just need to say-- that I have a lot to say.
I am full, full-up with words.
I am full, full-up with growth.
And soon, 1000 people will have been to this blog.
What does that mean?
Soon, I will be swimmin in a pool and soapin in a shower and then talkin to him.
What does that mean?

Further West.

We faced the ocean.
“Should we run?” I asked.
And so he followed me, into the questions.
We could have quarantined the contradiction.
Instead, we swam inside.
I was Floating. Waiting. Trusting.
He was Sinking in his echo:

“Don’t get too attached.”

His waves came up and shrank back.
Promise and retreat.
Belief and indecision.
But never
Never
Stability
Up, shrink back.
Up, shrink back.

“You can’t pick and choose what you go slow with.”

Up, shrink back.

I rode a wave into shore and then,
Then it was his idea:

There they were on the edge of the water, our drip castles in the sand.
FRAGILE.
IGNORANT.
TEMPORARY.

They were his idea.

He was hoping to fall asleep in the transition and wake up with the answer.
But his sun never entitled him to conviction,
And with the morning, came only a plea for more time.
(One for me, and one for her.)
A neutral party in his own war.

But I loved building that sand castle,
drip FRAGILE
drip IGNORANT
drip TEMPORARY
I loved building that sandcastle, despite the coming wave.

My ignorance was washed away.
So was he.
For while he never spoke an answer,
there was a day
when I stopped waiting.

It was his idea.

I remain unapologetic for my intensity.
“Should we run?”

Up, shrink back.
Up, shrink back.

Promise & retreat.

And love said “CAN’T YOU HEAR ME?”

But he was drowning in his echo.

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oposición. kampf. esforço.

Last night I had a dream that flipped me upside down.

I sit writing, hat on my head, unmatching socks on my feet, and between these two is a body full of: resistance, perseverance, determination, confusion. This dream brought back what I had flatly pressed into memory, brought back what was stored in a part of my brain labeled: PAST.Why are you back?

This past week, I have been less composed, less vertical, less steady. Opposition has rocked my stability with waves of a coming storm. It fights me. I fight back.

I see the windy haze between me and the mountains—and know: IT IS NOT OVER.

School is hard, but at this point, irrelevant to the weight of my other challenges. What is school? The story of my English major? How does modern era literature affect my writing as compared to my modern day challenges. And then, my most challenging: My Claire story.

Why is the whole world against my Claire story? It’s not theirs. It’s not yours. Why is it always pressing upon me? It is hard enough without the world, and we don't get it either.

I am still waiting for my Dad to write me a letter. This is the part where we go into PAST, and take the parts that are not flatly pressed, the parts that are scattered and neglected and screaming for attention. The parts that are The story of Dad. Some are monsters—I am scared of them. Some are only sad children, they are very alone—I am unsure how to finally ease them into resting. We take the children and the monsters from the back of my mind, and we… what are we going to do with them? I’m not sure, but we will start with words. I wait for the first letter, wondering if he has any idea what we're up against.

My firefighter is coming on Wednesday, and that is another story in itself. What is Our Story firefighter?

I am young and alive. I am full of beginnings, but some of them are so heavy. Some of them have their toes curled around my core, and their bodies stretched out from there… so that their fingers pull at my skin—aching to be seen. They want to be heard.

I am these stories, not because I chose to be, but because they were born in me.

I am Lyndsi Shae.

I can see a fireside turn blue.

A painting unframed: dries and crinkles. And so...
Sometimes it is necessary to press-out the edges, flatten the spaces,
before putting it all away.
Or else, know that the decay will come,
and the colors will fade, and say goodbye.
Let nature eat up the remains.
These days I am flattening what I can, and relinquishing the rest.
I give them up to the burden of measurable time.

Paintings of people I love.
Ideas of people I thought I would love.

People I could not keep.
I hear them decreasing in the distance.
You are my wrinkled paintings.

...

I am lying with my book upstairs. That’s right, the upstairs apartment.
I look at the oppressively rectangular off-white curtains and feel their
oblique isolation—attached to that clinky metallic rod which
makes no statement whatsoever, except to be blank and uninviting.
I hate these curtains, and yet, feel bad for them.
I want to wake them up— I imagine myself attempting to do this, sharpie in hand, scrawling out all my questions onto the folds of ancient linen.
What are his intentions?
Why does the night ache?
Will I ever write a page that completes my pulse?
And why, why do people nuzzle in the library?
There are more questions, but you know…
...its not like I’d post my whole soul online.
I say this as a joke, because some kids think I do that.
Guess what though—there’s still a ton of pages concealed in my journ.
That’s right, not virtual pages—paper ones.
Ink. Paste. Spelling Errors.
Words you haven’t seen.
Maybe about you.
Oooooooo.

And now, if you're still here... Time for blurbs. These days I scribble on napkins and calendars and torn out syllabus-margins.
Recently, I cleaned them out of my purse and my room.
Here's a couple things I had to say on days before Friday.

Last Thursday
the washing machine knob signaled that it was on RINSE.
I opened the lid, what does rinse look like?
Then, I saw it. I saw the deep rinse.
I lower my head down to smell the clear water.
A minute or so later, I open my eyes... realize that I am not floating in Lake Mo.
This is not a mountain spring.
Already my mind has run away from the kitchen.
Hi. I stick my face in washing machines,
and get lost in summer fantasy.

Sunday
a three ring binder was passed to me.
I opened to a page where there was a space for my name.
LYNDSI SHAE BROWN.
Next are four columns: SPRING. SUMMER. FALL. WINTER.
This is the part where they keep track of me:
Where will you be? Will you be here?
Everyone always wants to know.
Usually, I'm wishin for the answer
much harder than the relief society binder is.
But not on Sunday.
No further soul-searching required.
I answer with four stars, which translates to YES YES YES YES.
No MAYBE.
No ? ? ?!
Just clarity. Stability. I will be here.
When does that ever happen?
This paper, in its many different forms,
has found me millions of times since I came to college.
Never have I stared it down with such surety of mind.
And still, why am I sure?
No idea. But I am. I am sure.
I am here.

Monday
Today, I am thankful.
I am empowered by my twenty minutes of scripture study.
I had to do this for a Mission Prep paper, otherwise
I know I would have kept rushing through the surface of the day.
Instead, I stop, breathe, think, write.
I feel the relief of my spirit.
I am alive.
Where have I been?