I tried coming back at the wrong time. I basically came back and saw jark was no longer an admin. I read of what was going on (I am a jark watcher so I read his "conspiracy theories" which he wrote after his removal). I found Jark's sentiments to be echoed by many others concerned with the state of DA (some of whom were conveniently removed). I left as soon as I came. Basically I think I now have the energy to leave DA be. Whether it was this bad beforehand (before jark was fired) I'm not sure, but I have seen how things have fallen apart since. Goodbye.
-Laura-

Return. I have not been around DA so there can be no feelings that everything has changed, but I know it must have. It is the ember of desire that brings me back, something continuing to glow and sparking at the slightest touch.

Anything I could say beyond this is nothing more than relating my life, but this was my intention. After all, as I know this place has changed, so have I.

Life as I have known it:
To start, whereas before I could write of love but never claim to have felt it, I can now say with a certain sense of satisfaction to have been in love, to have felt the bonding of souls and heart beating for two instead of one. On a Tuesday in February, shortly before I would turn 18 I fell in love. I originally did not think he was as attractive as I could have wanted, indeed he was fat and proud, a trait which took me a little time to overcome, but that I realized I could overcome. After all, an aversion towards being fat is ingrained in us by society, this is what I believed...I was right.

I fell in love with a man (although even now he is only 17, soon to be 18, in my eyes he is more of a man than most guys ever can hope to be) who made me laugh, a romantic who could always spark a fire within me and what passion we shared. When I was with him, I truly felt like a woman and loved him all the more for that. When I was with him...Jeremy.

During the course of dating, he helped me in many ways, the most important of which is to be more social. He helped me gain a deeper understanding of myself. Before we even started dating he knew I was trasgendered, that did not bother him, in fact he enjoyed the crossdressing. I also initially told him I was bisexual, but I soon came to the realization that I was simply gay.

It was a few months later and the topic of whether I wanted to transition arose. Initially I said no, I had planned to go on hormones but would stop there. Initially I said no. The thought lingered in my mind and each time he asked the no grew less pronounced. It got to the point where no became an i don't know and even then I would feel like I was denying what I truly wanted. It finally came out as a yes. I had finally accepted myself, without any reservations, to be a transsexual.

For a while we stayed together, and I reassured him that if we did stay together he would not be alone, there are other guys who have dealt with their partners transitioning. It affected our relationship even when it was not the topic at hand, the unspoken words. We ended up staying together for maybe two more months before he called it off. We had dated for six months and we thought we would be together forever. (What little we knew.)

But, the breakup we both knew was coming and so we are still friends, best friends. In my experience now it is true that line between love and friendship is thin, if it were not for the sex it would be nonexistent.

I had told at least one person on DA of my other name (whether she remembers or not), it is Laura. The avatar I chose is the trans pride symbol with a purple background (it took forever to find a good hue of purple, and I am still not happy with it!) It will do. I have rid of any sex since I really no longer believe in such a label, granted it does ask for gender so I could put female. In general, I am returning by my own means.

When I was at the diversity workshop for college (I got to be an active part, the only trans in the crowd, heeheeheeheehee) a point was raised about minorities. The speaker asked how many people who are caucasian thought about the fact that they were caucasian nearly every day. A few people stood up, but this was out of over a hundred. Then the speaker asked how many people in a racial minority thought about the fact that they were part of a racial minority nearly every day. Almost every person stood up. This sparked the thought that any minority thinks about the fact that they are part of a minority nearly everday (myself included). It also posed the question why?

Granted I found my answer but I am not in the mood to go into that at the present moment. The point is that if anyone thinks I am now being flamboyant, know that expressing something about oneself cannot be regarded as flamboyance if it is constantly on one's mind.

Anyway, now that I have said that disclaimer...oh yes poems. What fleeting things, I should have forgotten them altogether. Joking of course. I have quite a few things to submit so do not think this cessation has been wasted. Also I need a labrat to read a ten page poem and tell me what they think it's worth. Also, the trend of surrealism has not disappeared from my poetry. If I can work on it some more, it will be a style I will be using quite often.

Other than this, for those still reading I leave ye with a few words:
Forever, by the measure of man, is a very short amount of time

Yeep!

On Tuesday of this week, school started once again. Time became evident, one dream sequence was traded for another, the translucent figure representing life once again becomes tangible and recognized by itself (androgynistic term aside) and others.

The classes: Psychology; Jazz Ensemble; Creative Writing (1st semester); Philosophy (2nd semester); Calculus; AP Physics; and English. Needless to say, i'm in up to my head and reverting to living a life of repitition where every day is the same as yesterday and tomorrow holds little (if any) more meaning. But that is part of school....The world needs eight-day weeks and three-day weekends; but then the schedules would be screwed up and somehow revised for the worse. But that is part of school.

To sum this up: i'm out of here.

They say people dream in black and white, in a manner clearly defined. Whether true or not, it is a trait in my family to dream in color. Am i the only one who does this, who has dreams that mimic reality so closely that, as they are occuring, they seem real. Who, immediately after, wonders whether they in fact occured. The people i see are usually people i know, the places are places i have usually been, but, most importantly, dreams represent the deepest desires; they reveal what cannot be faced once awake. Many memories of such dreams in the past. In retrospect, these desires exhibited in dreams are now desires exhibited when awake.

Two questions:
1) Are your dreams in black and white or full color? If color, is the color of the world realistic, symbolic, or surreal?
2) What is the significance of black and white or color in dreams?

-----
The rambles of the night before always seem selfish the day after. With this intention the last journal was deleted.

I have only recently seen a night so dark to be devoid of light. I have recently only been to a place so quiet to be deplete of human treads. A few weeks ago i went on vacation to a house by a lake. Outside the back window was a view of a mountain range just south of the Smoky Mountains. It was beautiful, it was silent, and the night had such cloud coverage that not a single star shined. I sat out once and watched the sunset and the successive evening only to come in a few minutes before all light faded (hisses at self for that). There is also a picture of this mountain view with fog across it.

The place was inspriing.

---
I have organized the levels of poets into four general categories. Granted this does not actually work because, by my definition of a poet, a poet cannot necessarily even write poetry. That is to say, a poet or artist in my view is someone who challenges standards, conforms to their own, takes a step back from the flow of the world to get the perspective of one not involved in it, and is considered quite insane by "normal" society for all of the above. Anyway...this is written in relation to the "rules" of poetry. One who:

1) Ignores the rules.
Nearly all poets start out in this category. In starting, someone cannot place limitations on themselves. First they learn to develop their own way of writing (such as the form, the words, how they express themselves) and, after so long of doing this, move to become...

2) Follows the rules
The poet has developed a writing style more or less and now that the basics are covered they attempt to expand their ability. They learn the different techniques that can be used and experiment until they are comfortable with them. Each experiment moves to successively harder concepts and different forms of writing are used (especially structures). After following certain rules for so long, the person more than comfortable with them moves to the next level.

3) Breaks the rules
Bored or merely looking for something different, the poet bends and eventually breaks the rules that they learned and adhered with devotion. This tends to be characterized by much experimentation outside the ordinary boundaries and has many things based on the manipulation of the traditional concepts of poetry. After years of this rebelliousness, the person comes back to these rules and becomes...

4) Redefines the rules
After so long of breaking the rules, a person sees they have developed their own set. They have an innovative approach and have come back to introduce it into the traditions of poetry. They write of these new rules, of their developments over the years and, if they are popular by now, there are groups that form to emulate every aspect of their style. If they are not popular by this time, the most they can usually do is know they have accomplished something for their own self and hope that their work reaches someone who is either already great or find someone who will be great. If this is the case, they will acheive some post-mortem popularity and glory but, more importantly, their style will have its name written in history as influential.

Of course, by the nature of poetry, not everyone follows this form. Some decide to go so far and stop, being content with what they have. After all, poetry is about being an individual above all else, something which has been affirmed, denied, or ignored by poets over the course of time.

-
As for me, I believe myself to be following rules currently, but also bending and sometimes breaking them at any point possible (especially at line structure).

---
Concerning a paradox:
The world is filled with such things, especially when human tempering is concerned.

The Catholic church holds two beliefs that will be focused on:
1) There is no such as pre-destination (that something is to happen in a specific way by fate)
2) God alone controls our death
The paradox by now should be obvious, but why miss a chance to write it. This was better as a fresh thought.

If God alone controls our fate, then every aspect of our death is destiny. The problem is if this is destiny, then it was as such since before our birth, meaning it was predestined. The church says that god alone controls death because otherwise they could possibly be advocating suicide, euthanasia, mercy killing, murder, and things of such manner. However, the church generalizes. It is true that we do not have control over natural death; however, we can influence it greatly by our the way we live. That is, the ordinary aspects of a lifestyle: diet; care of the body and mind; exposure to stress; where and how one lives.
On the other side, the fact is, whether the church says yay or nay, that we do have the choice of death, although not the choice of life, we can reproduce but beyond the act everything else is out of our hands. We cannot choose who we are, we can accept or deny it, but not choose. Anyway, by free will we can choose to continue living until something kills us or end life by taking it into our own hands. It is a choice; after all, life is composed of variegated physical processes, each one working working in conjunction in order to sustain the body at every second.
In religion this year the textbook, which if it was not preachy i might have taken it seriously, said that the church does not advocate the use of extraordinary means to preserve life. Taking this out of context, it is seen that what our body does every single second of the day to preserve life is an extraordinary mean because life itself is extraordinary. When considering that it arose from simple chemical reactions (or at least i believe as such) that repeated and combined with many other chemical reactions of like nature, it is vexing that it could even happen or, worse, have come this far (but i feel this way about reality in general). So to say that extraordinary means is not necessary, in my little devilish heretic's mind, is the same as admitting that humans have the right to confer death upon their own person.

-----
I really must get off, I made arbitrary plans to go shopping.