The Last Unicorn

When the last eagle flies, over the last crumbling mountain
And the last lion roars, at the last dusty fountain
In the shadow of the forest, though she may be old and worn
They will stare--unbelieving--at the last unicorn

When the first breath of winter, through the flowers is icing
And you look to the north, and a pale moon is rising
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
In the distance hear the laughter, of the last unicorn

Im alive
Im alive

When the last moon is cast, over the last star of morning
And the future has passed, without even a last desperate warning
Then look into the sky, where through the clouds a path is torn
Look and see her, how she sparkles, its the last unicorn

Im alive
Im alive

that good weekend feeling goes away so fast

my homework for the week so far.

APUS test tomorrow, government test tomorrow
german project due wednesday
government project due thursday, latin test thursday
latin project due friday, government article due friday
ten chapters of as i lay dying every night
APUS homework, every night, until i die.

i have never wanted a snow day more in my whole life than i want one right now, and it is going to be mostly sunny for the next week and a half at least. cold, and sunny.

everybody knows

IT SUCKS TO GROW UP

and everybody does

friday - sunday

on friday annebel came home with me and we took a nap because gilmore girls didnt come on. thats about all we did. nothing with friends is very nice after a long week. we had pizza for dinner at like 845.

last night was my daddys sixtieth birthday party. there was a man there who looked just like max medina but older. he could have been maxs much older brother or just barely his dad. it was okay but everyone there was forty years older than me at least, so i invited hattie over. o, it was so nice. whatever has changed in hattie is so good. we spent hours and hours in my room sitting and talking about middle school and cracking up. we looked at every picture on my computer. we watched blood drips on newsies square. we read old fanfictions. i forgot that the party was going on right outside, and she stayed until 1 in the morning. i have missed her even though i see her every day in fifth and sixth. four hours of socialization without any distractions. we did not talk about homework or history or anything about school except how silly our teachers are.

today was/is spencers birthday. i went to bookstar to get as i lay dying, but they didnt have it so i got a new journal and a hot chocolate. then to davis kidd where they had several copies, and i also got 12 songs for spencer. that is one of the best albums i own. among my favorites of all time. i hope you enjoy it spencer. cory branan is my hero. then we went to see happy feet (again for me) and it was so cold even just on the walk from the car to the theatre, but the movie was good. we went to dinner at amerigo and it was pretty good. im very full.

thank god for this weekend. im going to do a little precal (maybe) and read something for latin and thats it. i dont have to write an essay. do you hear me?

i dont have to write an essay.

This almost says what I want it to, but not quite.

Letters About Literature.


Natalie Babbitt:

When I was ten years old, all I did was leave the fourth grade and come into the fifth grade. It’s not a very pivotal change, fourth to fifth grade. In fact, I think it is decidedly less important than most others. Coming into first grade is a huge step, as are starting fourth, sixth, and seventh. In eighth grade you are the oldest kids at the school, and you don’t get that again for a while. As I have learned so far, in high school every year is critical. The change into grades named with words instead of numbers; the change out of being a freshman; the move into the upper classes; and finally, seniority.

Among all the transitions in youth, fourth to fifth grade means next to nothing. Ten years old means next to nothing in the year 2000. Ten years old for me in 2000 is so unimportant, so nonessential, so lifeless, compared to ten years old in 1880. When I was ten years old I was fuming about wearing a uniform to school the next year.

When Winnie Foster was ten years old, she was making the decision between mortality and infinity. She was ten years old and falling in love with a beautiful boy who was ninety-four years her senior. How could Winnie have grasped the concept of so many years? Ninety-four years is probably longer than you or I will live, though we all want to be a hundred. I try to imagine how Winnie feels when she pours the bottle out on the toad, or how the fibers and ligaments in Jesse’s arms and hands strain when he hugs her during the storm, and I know that nothing I have ever felt can give me the experience to empathize with their pain and strength, but I can hear Jesse’s soft voice in Winnie’s ear, and I can feel the slant in the rain and the electricity in the air around them.

I have read about Jesse Tuck and Winnie Foster three times, and I have built my ideas of time and sacrifice on their experiences. I am very young as humans go, and I hope I live to be a hundred, but I know I won’t. I will maybe make eighty and that’s the end. Sixty-four years left.

But I have built my life out of stones, and some of them are huge, some don’t fit, and some are perfect. I have built my life out of rocks, and a few of them are the Tucks. I know they’ll never go because they’re stuck. The Tuck rocks are not just to fill in the spaces between boulders; they are foundations of walls. They are necessary to hold the rest of it up. They are my Atlas, holding up the fragile earth.

Recent studies have theorized that an asteroid that has been hanging around our solar system for a while could hit earth in about thirty-five years. If this huge rock hits our little planet, it could kill everyone, they say. But it couldn’t kill the Tucks. Nothing can. When the world ends, Natalie, when earth breaks apart and the atmosphere dissolves, what will become of Jesse? What will become of Miles, of Tuck and Mae? When the world cracks and fire rains down from the clouds and all the humans die, where will the Tucks be? I see them thrust out into space on an ocean evaporating behind their heels, torn apart like the continents below them, to live forever choking and freezing alone in the vast night, praying for some greater power to take mercy on them and let them die.

In the endless frozen darkness, how do the Tucks go on? Do they spend their days scratching at their icy limbs, tearing at their own eyes and necks in futile attempts at suicide? Or do they swim about in the thick nothingness, searching for each other, hopeful though there is no hope? In a thousand years Mae will force her eyes open and see Miles close enough to touch. In a thousand more years Jesse and Angus will see human-shaped shadows and become frantic and meet each other. When the last thousand has passed, they will be together again. The unbeatable Tucks will have all gone insane millennia ago, but their joy will defrost the tips of their fingers, and so they will brush against each other for months until their knuckles interlock and freeze. The chain of Tucks will wander the universe, minds long gone, for the rest of time. They are rocks. They cannot be broken.

Angus Tuck says you can’t have living without dying.

Whether it can be called living or not, I hope to exist like the Tucks. Hopeful though there is no hope.

Sara Stephens

poookokihu8otgdv (8:05:45 PM): LETS GO
ThinkOfSnuvs (8:05:57 PM): name the locale-- my bags are already packed.
poookokihu8otgdv (8:06:23 PM): BERLIN
poookokihu8otgdv (8:06:24 PM): NOW
poookokihu8otgdv (8:06:26 PM): LETS GO
ThinkOfSnuvs (8:06:23 PM): ALRIGHT!
ThinkOfSnuvs (8:06:31 PM): kreuzberg!
poookokihu8otgdv (8:07:02 PM): COME ON
poookokihu8otgdv (8:07:06 PM): times a'wastin
ThinkOfSnuvs (8:08:35 PM): lemme call luftanza
poookokihu8otgdv (8:09:03 PM): okay!
ThinkOfSnuvs (8:09:52 PM): they say they've got two tickets in first class, but only if we're willing to share the cabin with stacy and clinton
ThinkOfSnuvs (8:09:55 PM): and not pay money
poookokihu8otgdv (8:10:28 PM): YESPLEASE

hack hack

this cough ive had since saturday has been different every day. saturday it was new, sunday it was wet and full and the worst. yesterday it kept me awake and made me taste dayquil for hours and hours. today a little of that hung over into morning, but now its just the sort of cough where you feel like youre not getting anything accomplished when you cough. its dry and heavy and it makes my chest hurt.

but looking up, ive been able to breathe through my nose almost all day. and at least i dont have scarlet fever. or frank mccourt disease like alex bransford does.

geschichte ist langweilig.

o tempora! o mores!

this week was short, and its a good thing too. i couldnt have handled much more. the two days were spent frantic and tired, moreso than usual.

today after school i went to schnucks with my mother and bought egg nog and turkey and chocolate chess pie. on the way home the radio was playing christmas music and i felt better for a little while.

but when i got home, drew was there, and so now i feel totally useless. the four hours i spent trying so hard to prepare him for his math test apparently meant nothing. it was like helen keller and anne sullivan, but without the epiphany at the water spigot. nothing got through, i guess.

he failed it.

im going to bed. dont wake me up, please.

Counselor Certification

= love.

eileen said it would be terrible but she was wrong. i spent a weekend getting exhausted and learning how to do something i want to do. i got to see danielle and troy and allyson and rachel ross and sing river of life till my legs ached and ached. i have accomplished something pretty cool, and i have a new shirt to prove it.

CERTIFIED CAMP COUNSELOR.

yes.

today i spent two hours tutoring my brother in math. he is in college. he cant take any more courses in college until he passes this class. he cant understand how to add negatives. i am so afraid that he will fail it and give up and drop out and be like my mother but never go back like she did. i love my brother and i want him to be okay and graduate. he is not a student; he was not made to take tests. i was. he was made to make things. to make people laugh and clap and to make theatre happen, but hes gotten out of theatre and all he wants is to pass this class and finish college and just be doing okay and be independent. i am doing all i can but there is too much to teach and too little time and the wrong brain. i need more time. i cant believe im worried about anything when my brother has so much to worry about, just passing college, and his rent, and a job, and interviewing for another job, and the heat in his house not working. i will help him and it will be okay. he will graduate and i know he will be okay.

i cant believe i was so upset that ms wexler gave me an 88. whats so bad? i mean, im a little upset because she didnt grade the frederick douglass test, and because we dont really get papers back in there, but i deserved an 88. i didnt read the sun also rises, so i failed the test, so i got a B. plus, its AP. how can i be flustered over an 88 in AP when my brother passed standard math in high school with Ds and he is struggling so hard in hope of the distant possibility he will get over a 60?

we take life too seriously at white station. why should the effect of one test make me want to throw a chair through ms wexlers window? why cant we get out of this life of numbers and capital letters and listen to what is important? words and actions and feelings and dizziness. all of this is what we should be studying. lets study literature, ms wexler, not memorize events in the pages of books. lets learn to be thankful for our minds and not misuse them by fretting over little things like an 88 or by copying words from a powerpoint about proprietary colonies and the three parts of the constitution. lets learn something useful for the betterment of our minds, not for the betterment of our test scores.

i know i will never be able to live that way.

i was made to take tests and i cant stop caring about them. but i have acheived this: i have an 88 in AP english and that is okay. i will make up for it. i will be okay. it is not going to kill me. it is not okay to throw GPA to the wind and let my grades go to hell for the sake of an experience, but it is okay to get a B sometimes. college will understand. my friends will still love me. i will still love me.

Help?

i need to cut ninety-three words from North Dakota for my gov school application and it still needs to be the best thing ive ever written. suggestions?

[EDIT: i got it down to 363. i cant bear to cut it any more. governors school will just have to deal with 63 extra words.]

Who are you, Kelly Green, with your head between your knees?

kelly green sold out tonight.

SOLD.

OUT.

do you understand?

i dont.

Morgan's Birthday is in a Few Hours

so, in celebration, here is the poem i wrote her in ninth grade.

For My Friend Morgan, Who When We Were
five
or six hid with me in my treehouse
to escape a robot dressed up
as her sister
by my brother
in pillowcases
and laughed without making a sound.
Who when we were five
taught me how to really appreciate the glory that is Hanson
without ever hearing their music.
Who watched with me the same stupid movie every day
so we wouldn't upset the characters.
Who for four years
didn't see me once,
but managed to still love me when we were nine
or ten.

For my friend Morgan who when we were
nine or ten
read Tolkien with her dad because someone was making a movie
and showed me that a Beatle is not a bug or a car
but a god.
Who told me secrets, like
how she was really older, and
Who built dollhouses with shoeboxes
and made her own dolls for them
better than any doll or house in a store
and sweeter for the effort.
Who played with me at lunch
the same stupid games every day
because I loved them.

For my friend Morgan who when we were
fourteen and fifteen
stayed up until tomorrow
with caffeine and cookies and me
to talk into a computer mic over and over and over
so it would be perfect,
and who covered her room from floor to ceiling
with pictures
like the sun, and couples, and her friends,
and a lonely plum
because it helps her blend in
to be surrounded by beautiful things.
Who taught me that "hate" is a pretty strong word,
and that sometimes it's not a sin to change your mind
and that claiming two celebrities as my own isn't fair
and that All You Need Is Love.

For my friend Morgan who, now we are both fifteen,
bought me a yellow rose on my birthday
and slyly kidnapped me with a bomb
disguised as a cake.
Who listens to the same stupid complaints every day
even when I exaggerate
because Lord knows,
I love talking
and she loves me.

a very long paragraph

yesterday in the afternoon, at the end of the afternoon, right before it becomes night and the light from outside the window is grey and blue, i read some of martha parks web journal and i was overwhelmed by it. we have only been friends for a very short time but i think she is one of the most phenomenal human beings i have ever met. i wish she were happier. i wish everyone were happier. on the way to kelly green it was raining and i listened to josh groban and i cried all the way there, i dont know why. i couldnt see out the rear window and the rain was everywhere and i was so afraid, of the rain, the window, the play, my lines, my legs, high school, everything below my skin. there is something wrong with me this fall and i wish someone would tell me what it was so i could fix it. maybe when fall ends and it is really winter it will go away. maybe it will stay forever like the scratches on my knees. i need to get out of highschool and do something frivolous and exhausting. i need to be sleepless and kiss a boy or smoke some pot or get very very drunk but i know i wont do any of those things because i am afraid of all of them. i hate alcohol and im not ready to screw myself up with drugs and there are no boys who want to kiss me. i will have to be content with being sleepless. kelly green was a tornado last night and everybody loved it, i loved it. we got through and after curtain call i danced to where is the love even though i hate dancing because at the momos ball sean hines told me i looked stupid and i wanted to kick him and break his bones. we went to ihop and i sat across from ryan masson and shared my pancakes with strawberry syrup. i always knew he was beautiful but i am so glad he did kelly green because if he hadnt i would never have known what he is like in real life. what would happen if i stopped doing everything? if i stopped going to school and doing homework and eating, and just went to ihop with my friends and laughed? if i stopped eating and found a field to run through and found a pen to write with and found a play to act in? if i never eat again, then will you love me? i dont know who i am or what i believe, but i know that i am happy when it is late and i am laughing and talking. i went to sarah mercers house and it was so nice to sleep in her bed because she is comfortable sleeping in contact with me, with my elbow on her arm and her leg touching my hip. i love human contact and i want to always feel someone elses body touching mine. im not implying what a teenager would infer. i love holding hands and hugging people and wrapping my arms around shoulders and feeling human hands in my hair.

production week

morgan and eileen,

i dont know how you do it. "i am stretched to the breaking point over all this!" you are doing so much more stuff than i am and getting so much less sleep and you are still going going going. you guys are my heroes. you surpass me at all times. try to get some sleep.

--sara

Dear Savannah Self,

WHO ARE YOU TO DECIDE THAT A MAN CANNOT MARRY THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE IF IT IS ANOTHER MAN?

WHO ARE YOU TO SAY THAT THE BIBLE HAS THE POWER TO CONTROL THE LAWS OF THIS DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY, EVEN WHEN THEY GO SO FAR AS TO DENY THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS GRANTED TO THEM IN THE VERY FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE US CONSTITUTION, WRITTEN TO GUARANTEE EVERY HUMAN HIS INALIENABLE CIVIL LIBERTIES?

WHO ARE YOU TO DENY SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE?

WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE?

WHO ARE YOU TO INSIST THAT MORGAN JON FOX, ANDREW GARNER, OR BROCK TERWILLIGER IS LESS WORTHY OF MARRIAGE THAN YOU OR ME?

GET OUT OF MY FACE, SAVANNAH SELF. YOU ARE NOT SUPERIOR TO ANYONE, AND YOU AND YOUR BELIEFS ARE SO CONTRADICTORY, I CANT UNDERSTAND HOW YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELF EVERY DAY. JUDGE NOT, SAVANNAH SELF, LEST YE BE JUDGED.

I CANT GET THE IMAGE OUT OF MY HEAD THAT WHEN YOU DIE AND SKIP UP TO THE PEARLY GATES UNCONCERNED, SAINT PETER WILL LOOK UP YOUR NAME IN HIS BOOK AND SAY, "SAVANNAH SELF? OH, IM SORRY, YOU ARE INTOLERANT, JUDGMENTAL, HYPOCRITICAL, AND UNFAIR. YOUR ROOM IS DOWNSTAIRS."

REGARDS,
SARA

'Neath the shadow of the PSAT I am bound to write something like this.

so, the PSAT is tomorrow. the pea-ess-ay-tea. the pssatt. actually its the PSAT/NMSQT. that is, the preliminary scholastic aptitude test / national merit scholarship qualifying test. the difference between the sat and the psat is such: the sat i can take again. the psat, this time, tomorrow morning, means i either get a 215+ and get national merit qualified, or i get a 214- and i dont. its that simple. no getting around it. and im worried. why? because i dont know how to do math, thats why.

in other news, i was wrong, autumn. i dont like you. you lead to winter and as soon as its not hot every day this "condition" comes back. and i hate it. and its your fault, autumn. fall. i will have to cut my fingernails short soon and keep them that way till april at least. you suck, autumn. we are no longer friends.

the psat people say the most important thing is to get a good nights sleep.

good night.

Jonathan Edwards Style HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE Sermon about WSHS for AP English

(to be read in your best GOD WILL SMITE YOU voice.)

HELLFIRE AND BRIMSTONE!

In the beginning, God created the classroom and the hall, but over the years, this holy sanctuary has been infiltrated by you, the disciples of Satan, whose foul feet blemish the wrong side of the hall and hobble through the incorrect door—into the gates of hell, as slowly as if Lucifer's demons themselves clung to your ankles, grabbing maliciously at your hems and jerking your britches tantalizingly low. You Devil's children do wholeheartedly invoke the wrath of almighty God with your evil deeds, calling the Savior to rain down his fury upon your unworthy heads.
God's wrath is as horrifying as Mr. Brown scurrying down the checkered hallway with the walk of expulsion, chanting, "It WAS going to be an awesome, awesome day, White Station," in a soft voice. He will soon grasp your belt, point a finger to the sky, and proclaim, "To infinity, and beyond!" before dragging you off by your ear to the pits of hell, or actually just ISS in the auditorium lobby. There, you shall spend an eternity in silence and grief, woefully scribbling the decrees of that Ol' Deluder on stones with your own blood.

Wish you to avoid this fate and walk in the light of God? Nay, though you howl and cry, your screams are lies, hiding your sins. Upon leaving this congregation, the multitudes of you shall enter the halls and damn yourselves without delay with your tongues shouting meaningless obscenities between classes. For this you shall be punished by having your mouth washed out with soap for a thousand millennia in hell. Your stumblings through the corridor in linear groups of five and six will gain you forty lifetimes of waiting behind Mr. T., the Rock, and the Governator in line for the bathroom. Endless detention awaits those who dishonor themselves by skipping class to smoke in the halls, the parking lot, or the gym, whether senior or east!

The eye of God is upon you when you sit to fill your bellies with strange meats and vegetables. Ne'er shall more than eight bodies populate a single table, nor trash be left beyond the Bell, nor neither food nor any other item be thrown across the room, lest the guilty party wish to spend all the days of the earth scraping gum from 'neath the very desk of Satan himself.

In the classroom, ye masses who borrow pencils, pens, quills, hair ties, or erasers must return them post haste, for to borrow without returning is to steal, and Almighty God thinks no more of a thief than of a murderer or a gnat. Ye filthy masses beg for hell whene'er you demand the blessing of paper whilst you have your own. This offense deserves and shall receive no less castigation than a paper cut every hour 'til Judgment Day.

If you should think you have some escape from hellfire, consider yourselves should you daily mount your metal monsters to drive to this once sacred place. Should ye dare not park betwixt the saintly white lines so graciously provided you by your God in heaven whom you have forsaken, he will forsake you in turn, leaving you to die a thousand deaths by rogue football to the throat. You who selfishly refuse to let others in the line to journey home after the final Bell, you who with windows down play repetitive and inarticulate music at maximum volume, seek ye NOT the kingdom of God—there is no hope for you in escaping damnation, for you are but scum in the eyes of the Lord.

Listen, children, for you who stand on the edge of the bowels of hell have only one chance to turn around and enter the Up Only Staircase toward heaven—immediate repentance and immediate reform. RESPECT your fellow heathens: lighten your attitudes, for he whose outlook is hellishly low shall soon join his mind in the unceasing fire. RESPECT your education by abstaining from that abominable breach of trust known as cheating. RESPECT your peers' personal space—never lower yourself to the barbaric acts of disrespect of poking, pulling, and the grabbing of others' backsides, especially if you do not know them. RESPECT those who excel in their studies and the grades they earn for their toils. RESPECT your instructors' right to instruct class, RESPECT your classmates' right to arrive in class on time, and finally, RESPECT MY FRESH.

Amen.

i went to florida

my gay great aunt kitty's rude life partner madge thinks my name is katharine.


put ya stunna shades on.


the waves crash on the sand, there's a storm that will break any second.


my feet, drews feet, the ocean.


i like my family. dad mom drew.


"what the hell was that?"


this sunset was about eighteen thousand times greater in real life than it is in this picture.

and finally...


the rock should win an oscar for his stunning job in DOOM, the greatest movie ever to exist, in which he costars with eomer and they have very big guns.

hi.

mr williams just cancelled novus forever.

It feels so good to go to a school that makes me feel so safe and comfortable every day.

me: *walks toward class with morgan*
scary kid: *pokes me (hard) and points at his friend* he say he wanna get with you.
me: thats fabulous *continues walking*
scary kids friend: i heard you suck dick!
morgan: (o my god!)
me: *speeds up, approaches andrew lu* andrew, you see that group of boys behind me?
andrew: yeah
me: would you mind going over there and beating them up?
andrew: sorry, im pretty sure they could take me.


i hate this place.