Hiking Up Memory Lane

Tonight while searching for my college transcripts, I took an exhausting hike up memory lane.  Yes, "hike up," because whoever penned "walk down memory lane" was clearly delusional.  Sure, I found some marbles along the path, but there were also a lot of rocks, and mud, and unidentifiable sludge slides.  It is definitely travel not meant for the weak and weary.  In the end, though, it was a lot like participating in boot camp at the gym...with every station you think you might just die.  You hate it, you want to kill the trainers, you question "why?" repeatedly.  And then suddenly...you're done.  You made it.  And despite all the horror that you felt while going through it, you feel happy.  Because, well, you're a survivor.

I found a lot of my old poetry and thought I'd share a couple.  I'll spare you the deep, dark, scary stuff of my previously tortured self, and share just two that are not great but also not going to get me committed (cough, cough). Despite how frightening it can be to read into your past soul, it's also very enlightening.  I can't post any of the photos I found because my life has been threatened by several people (including myself) if I do.  So, here ya go...a couple of old poems (written exactly as I wrote them):

"change of address"

to whom it may concern:

i am writing to inform you of my not-so-recent

change of address.

it seems you have lost track of me,

much to my dismay,

and i would like to correct this situation

as soon as possible.

as with other 

unseen

magical

extraordinary

beings such as yourself

(i.e., santa, the tooth fairy, the easter bunny, and those little sock-stealing elves)

i thought my move would be automatically registered in your system.

after all, santa never lost me,

and we moved all over the damn place.

however, since you seem to be working off of

some antiquated tracking system,

i would like to manually provide you

with my current whereabouts

(please see the address at the top of the page).

i sincerely hope that you will see to 

correcting this situation

as soon as possible

as i am without hope

or inspiration

or any such thing

and have been since my relocation.

please consider this an emergency

and send my muse to me

at the correct location

as soon as possible.

yours in considerable distress,

a former writer extraordinaire

~~~

"Caterpillar"

There are so many reasons 

to turn around

and only a few 

to step forward

I am safe here

in this cocoon

but it's been too long now

and metamorphosis

has not occurred

Maybe I'm just not meant to be

a butterfly

So be it

Caterpillars cannot fly

but they can crawl anywhere.

~~~

And there you have it.  Some selfies I took along the hike up.

~peace

p.s.  a note after the post...there were a lot of shiny marbles, and I'm happy to have the memories I do.  They made me the phenomenal person I am today!