spring waits for no one

weed, w = 1, e = 2, d = 5: I almost want to pretend this is some vague stream-of-consciousness thing like james joyce's Ulysses but I definitely just used the autocorrect after the first word of every line on my phone to see if I could make something that sounded vaguely coherent, and also I threw in some punctuation, also I made a bad weed joke because it fits with the spirit of this poem (april 20th)

spoilered because it sucks

Spoiler

you can get a lot of things
if you are a little too serious,
about the same as the other
person who has a good time
because I can't tell you how much that'd cost
to be fair enough
in the end

and for every single person
that was the one thing
that would be pretty good
to make up for the conversation,
say anything about prices and the straps

on the other hand it is a very important thing
for the conversation about the future
to be honest with the people who are going to be rather uncomfortable around you
when you get the sense
you threw into making the right decision
even if you don't have to be able enough to get a good deal
(and the only thing that caught me
was the fact that I don't think)

That last line is so fitting.

;-;

((7^7)/(7^6))*3: I'm not good at naming poems and I think I've reached the point where I'm not going to try to (april 21st)

I'm not sure how I come up with ideas -
it's almost like a drop of water
falling into a lake,
or knocking over dominoes
to make some kind of shape,
or shooting neutrons
at uranium
to start a chain reaction

except,
instead of causing ripples
or making a smiley face
or powering a factory,
it just keeps me up
long after midnight,
gears in my head still whirring
long after my limbs
have gone to sleep

the integral from 0 to 22 of 1 dx: aaaaah I have finals in a week and a half aaaaah (april 22nd)

i keep trying to see
if i can fit the whole world
in my head,
talking here in this basement
to nobody but myself
while I repeat equations
for the thousandth time -
n * lambda = d * sin(theta),
Nj/No = Pj/Po * e^(-delta E/kT),
dP/dt = P (a - b ln (P))

and i can't stop myself
(because in my head
i'll either know something
in or out, or i'll
never have heard of it)
and i swear that one of these days
i'm going to break something
and then i won't be able
to start

46/2 (ugh prime numbers are inconvenient): thinking about living forever, because that's not on my mind for any reason in particular (april 23rd)

we like to tell ourselves
that we don't want
to live forever -
our loved ones would die,
our homes would burn down
or get crushed under asphalt,
that familiar places, familiar names, families faces,
that our identity
would get ground up
under sisyphus's rock
as he rolls it up a hill
day after month after year
after decade after century
after millennium
after kalpa after eternity

but I think a lot of us
(and maybe me included)
would drink from that fountain
or eat those peaches
or get bitten by that vampire

we spend our whole lives
running to the finish line
because we tell ourselves
there's no point in walking
unless we want to trip
and fall on our faces
so the people behind us
laugh and forget there's anything more
than the body lying in a ditch
just past the tape

and it just so happens
there's a lot less of a difference
between walking and running
across the Atlantic Ocean

(2 * 4 * 6 * 8 )/16: brown building, because I liked how last year's poems were all thematic and I'm concerned that all of these poems are weaker because they're not really connected (april 24th)

I remember sitting on an orange couch,
resting my feet on a gray table
while I grabbed papers from my backpack,
and looked past the floor-to-ceiling glass windows
at the crowds of students
heading to and from class
on the brick street
by the cafeteria and the dorms,
and past the steel and concrete
and past the snow-covered dead grass
that made up the steep brown hills
I'd be running out of breath on soon,
to the purple mountains
caught in the afternoon sunlight

I didn't think
that I'd be leaving
anytime soon,
and I didn't think
that street would ever be empty,
that I'd ever run from the mountains

then I pulled out my phone,
checked my notifications,
and read an article about Wuhan
(I think it was on BBC -
this was back when I still liked british newspapers),
and how it was going into lockdown,
and for the life of me I thought
that half the world away
was far enough,
and that I wouldn't be spending
my nineteenth birthday
cooped up in the basement,
books and blankets and papers
forming a little circle
around my laptop,
like I'm trying to keep everyone else
away

I guess hindsight
really is 2020

3^2 + 4^2: just finished reading the final chapter I'll ever have to read for o-chem and if stockholm syndrome were a thing that actually existed and it would be me and that class (april 25th)

I think I'm more nervous
about the end of the semester
than the start;
it's a lot harder to see
when you're coming out
into the light at the end of the tunnel,
if only because it takes a little longer
to figure out what you're looking at
(but you'll see it, whether you like it
or not)

13^2 - 170: imagine if I had anything to say (april 26th)

it's always weird
how I feel most awake
before I'm going to sleep;
that the only time
I feel like I can do things
is when I've cleared my head,
taken a few deep breaths,
and told myself
that I'm not going to do things

one of these days,
I hope I can tell myself
that I'm not going to do things
a little sooner

4^3 - 3^3 - 2^3 - 1^3 - 1: you hope you're going somewhere (april 27th)

you don't know where you're going,
but you've got nowhere else to go;
the cliffs are just a little too high,
the creek behind you is just a little too big for your boat,
the sand on the shore has a few too many jagged rocks.

grab the back of your boat and push,
grunt and groan as it moves inch by inch,
feel it thwack against the surface of the water,
throw yourself onto it
before it sails off without you

pull yourself up, look up at your friends waving at you
from the edge of the cliffs, waving handkerchiefs
and wishing you the best of luck
(you hope that you'll run into them again,
once they set sail and crash their boats into yours,
wherever that'll be or however long that'll be)

take the oars under your feet
and thread them through the holes on the sides of your boat,
ignore how your muscles burn as they fight against the ocean,
ignore your lungs gasping for air as they fight against the sky,
and tell yourself that you'll stop as soon as the current picks up
to pull you into the sea,
wherever that'll be or however long that'll be

don't look behind you, because there's no point in stopping
to see something that's fading behind the mist, less than a memory,
the vague feeling of something familiar (warm or cold)
before you journeyed out into the endless ocean, where there's nothing
but a rock or two jutting out of the water,
gray clouds always hanging low at the horizon,
and the sinking feeling that one of these days
something's going to punch a hole in the bottom of your boat,
and you'll slip and sleep beneath the tranquil sea

but you hope you'll catch a glimpse of another set of cliffs,
see new friends waving their handkerchiefs at you
and asking you what took you so long,
what with a smooth, sandy shore,
a creek wide enough to fit a boat twice your size,
and a dock just waiting for you to run into it,
tie your boat to it, and explore this new land for the long while
before you find yourself on another voyage,
wherever that'll be or however long that'll be

Spoiler

Thanks! I've been pretty busy/stressed over the last month, so this has been a nice opportunity for me to let out some emotions.

14 + 7 + 3.5 + 1.75 + ...: share the same fate (april 28th)

I'm always smart when I agree with you -
I always make sense when I'm telling you
what you've told yourself.

Otherwise, I'm too emotional,
I haven't done enough research,
I'm too biased, I don't have the perspective.

None of the awards matter,
none of the letters of praise matter,
that research and those sources aren't important to you.

You've spent so much of your life
holding a mirror in front of your face
and telling yourself that you know how the world works.

Nobody knows how the world works,
and anyone who thinks otherwise
will wake up one day with a busted lip and broken mirror.

I can only tell you what I think,
and I think that you'd be so much better off
peering out from behind that mirror.

And maybe you'd understand what it's like
to learn again, to love again, to have friends again,
to stop being the judge, jury, and executioner to nobody but yourself.

We will both die having figured out nothing,
but I think I'd like to keep giving it the old college try
so I don't spend all my time looking at my reflection
and pretending I've made sense of a world
that humbles everyone.

(116/58) + 3^3: ἀπολογία (april 29th)

I think that maybe I probably
it seems like you could I'd like to mention
I should mention I believe that it feels like
I'm not exactly sure because it might be
better to say I feel that I believe that isn't
exactly right that possibly maybe
somewhat reasonably theoretically
potentially ideally this could be why
I feel that you could probably say
like you said as you mentioned earlier
for example for instance as evidenced by
I'm not sure about that the textbook
mentioned something else the teacher
was talking about this concept the TA
said he was going to do this
you're not necessarily wrong but
I agree with some of what you've said and
let me check again because maybe
I like that you brought that up
that stumped me, nobody talked about that
well you could look at it this way
you might even say that
I might be misreading that
not sure unsure exactly precisely particularly
what you're trying to say here?
but however I understand
where you're coming from and
in this specific case that would make sense
otherwise perhaps yeah yes still
I can't say I can't tell I don't know if
you probably know more than I do
yep no problem thanks you're welcome
let me know if you have any other questions

the indefinite integral of the derivative of 30: spring waits for no one (april 30th)

cw: death, references to self-harm (mainly in the spoiler)

Spoiler

this poem series, and this poem in particular, was loosely inspired by Gwendolyn Brook's poem To the Young Who Want to Die. There's not anything I can really say (or write) to do the poem justice - I would highly recommend reading it, if that's something you're comfortable with (because yeah, it's pretty heavy, but not in a bad way).

And thanks to everyone who's been reading along - it's been a heck of a month, but I'm happy that y'all took the time to sit down and look through these.

I always see the trees for the forest -
my eyes scan up and down the bark
looking for any sap leaking out,
any bent branches or dying buds,
holding a magnifying glass over every little crack
because I'm afraid one of those trees will catch fire
if I'm not looking, and take down the whole forest
with it

I am spring, the bridge
between all the grace and poise
of fresh snow gently settling on a field,
and the radiance of sunlight
filtered through a leafy canopy;
I am spring, the bridge
between the wrath of ice
coating the roads,
snapping off branches,
sending cars sliding,
and the wrath of a sun
that makes cooking pots out of blankets,
turns cars into saunas,
leaves leaves to wilt and die

but what is the point
of pretending that I am
cursing or blessing these trees
that grew from saplings
long before I did,
and will crash down to the earth
long after I do

what is the point
of pretending that I can
make my coffin out of these trees,
that I can live my whole life
having never seen the forest,
that I should wait for a fire
I know that I can handle
if it ever flares to life

I am spring, and this is my forest,
and one of these days
I will accept that
and embrace all of it,
thorns and roses alike,
and I will
make my way to the tallest tree,
climb up it,
and watch the sunrise