mindy's_journal iheartyou American Literature Survey II At One O'clock in room 309: In my American Literature classroom there are twenty-two salmon-seated desks arranged in a circle to promote class discussion. It doesn't. The carpeting is a dull gray-blue, with various runs and six stains I hope are the results of spilled coffee. It is completely uninviting, and I can only imagine that it reminds everyone else how little they want to be sitting here right now. The walls are dingy; they might have been white twenty years ago, but now they are a hopeless chipped shadow of what they must have been. The windows are old, possibly older than my professor, sad a fact as that may be. The rust isn't merely covering the metal hinges or framework, its crawling on the glass windowpanes, almost like its trying to infect the framed lanscape right outside. Ironically, the outside world fights back, as nature often does. Cold air seeps in and created a draft you don't have to be sixty to notice. Oh yes, and on the infrequent days when it is nice weather outside the mechanisms of the windows are obstenent and immovable. We dare not exert too much force,in case our grip should slip and we cut ourselves on the jagged edges of growing rust, paranoid of the infection that would surely be acquired. There is, what I assume to be, a simply knobbed wooden coatrack on the far wall. It is always empty, but the wood varnish matched that of the door. As a matter of fact, the door is the only impressive object in the room, mainly because it is so thick it becomes a solid obstruction, silently standing like a muscled guard keeping us all locked in. I honestly think it weighs more than I do since, on more than one occasion, I've had to exert the force of my entire body upon it just to let myself out. Quite sadly we english students cannot look upwards and find any saving grace from the heavens. The florescent lighting is too dismal to be that of God's. However, I cannot help, as I stare at the off-white ceiling, that an english class mustn't be surrounded by beauty to be successful or rivoting. We are accustomed to homely appearances cloaking a brilliant mind. We are familiar with being overlooked, by the entire campus excepting ourselves. We know our strength is in each other. This department is what students and professors bring to it. Yet in every class, we have the most essential resource- literature is never less than evoking, but I know one prerequisite to an enlightening course, is an inspirational professor. One that stands out from the walls that inclose me. 020403 ... iheartyou The gold is like Tiger stripes- honestly from the stone. It IS sugar and irises and pillows. The ecstacy breaks through everything, even skin and porcelin and text. Thinking always, without anything else. Maps are covered with impressions and stamps. AND THAT WHAT YOU FEAR THE MOST COULD MEET YOU HALF WAY. Half gold, half green. 020403 ... iheartyou Whose words these are, I think I know. His voice is in the silence that surrounds me. He will not hear me stopping though, here to feel his words without his knowing. Banished ears to hear beloved songs. 020403 ... iheartyou What I love is when everything is poetry and you cannot stop it youspeakit youwriteit youseeit youhearit anditisfloodingyourthoughts andyouhavetoshareit andyouhavetoyouhavetoyouhaveto becauseyouareapoet andbecauseeverythinginthisonefleeting momentthatyou'retryingsohardtoholdontoisbeauty and art and God. 020403 ... iheartyou I discovered a little man crucified on a church wall hidden in the pixels of my imagination afterthought: he was made of stone 020404 ... rhuube Sometimes white walls and coffee stains make fair skinned beauties stand out despite the gloominess of a professor who tells stories of her loves and lives lost. The princesses of room 204 sit in the corner, musing and dreaming about things that they heart and things that may or may not heart them back. They think about the empty coat rack- feel like hanging their troubles up and running out of that booming door. They always forget to sit in a seat where they can look outside at the squirrels that play in the trees; you know, the ones that don't care about Sharon Olds or even T.S. Eliot...the ones who chase eachother around; searching for a suitable mate and a rotten apple core to fill their half dollar stomachs. They squat, cheeks full, and eyes bright; staring at the window, hoping that one day that girl with the curly blonde hair will turn around and say hi. For now, they'll wait and they'll keep wondering why she thinks so much and why everything has to be so poetic to her. They'll keep wishing she'd just let things ride, find a tree to play in...find a rotten apple core to heart. 020414 ... jane iheartyou: your first entry made me laugh my ass off, although i didn't know if it was intended for humor. i think it's because i understand rhuube good show 030217 what's it to you? who go blather from