Metaphors & Medicine

As humans, we have been given such wonderful and amazing gifts from our Creator, and yet we find ways to misuse them all. We are given brains to think, we end up using them to over-analyze situations and make things up to become something they aren't. We are given hearts, and we go after desires that aren't healthy for us, ones we can never have. We are given eyes that we let cry over nights of studying only to end up with a grade on an exam we never wanted. We are given souls, and we haunt them with our regrets, our wishes, all these things that we want instead of looking at our lives realistically. We spend years and years dreaming of our lives in the years ahead because we make the present seem unbearable. Why is it so hard to live in the present and see it as something more? When I was in elementary school, we had firefighters come to our school once every year to teach us what to do if a fire started in our homes. They took us to a trailer that they brought with them ...

In a bottle I've kept all my secrets, hoping that one day I could throw it all away, as if one day they'd stop being such a big part of me, and I'd be able to start a whole new day. In a lock I've kept my deepest desires, wishing to someday be able to unleash them once the right person has the power to open me, and I wouldn't have to work so hard to conquer them. In a dream I've locked my passions, anticipating when I'd be tall enough to grab them, as though I have to grow to earn them, my budding flower waiting for a longer stem. In a land beyond the olive groves, I've buried my love, waiting for the right time for it to be freed, like a wound hidden deep under my skin, my words the only weapon to make it bleed.

The urge had been gnawing at me for the past few days, words trying to claw their way out of me. I've become really good at shutting my "writing brain" down during school, avoiding it more than ever. It is hard to push something away like poetry or story characters brewing inside your head, until you get good at it. Then the characters go silent. You don't hear their heartbeats. You don't get random sentences in the middle of the day, you don't come up with poetry lines in the middle of a Biochemistry lecture. If you stop feeding it long enough, the feeling goes away. You stop feeling guilty for leaving it behind, for watching dust accumulate on your journal. Then you think, "Perfect. I can keep this going until winter break." Here's what happens when you are a writer trying to silence your inner writer: 1- You can sleep without having to worry about dropping a few ideas you had onto a page. 2- You finally get more homework done without h...

In a land beyond the olive groves, there is a world where people are always running around frantically. There is always an appointment to catch, a phone call to make, a meeting to attend, or an assignment to complete. Here I am trying to finish reviewing three chapters we covered in class this week so that I can catch up and have enough time for my other 1001 assignments that will be due this week. My life has always been like this, but today, it all feels much worse. Beyond the olive groves, the world is spinning. Time is ticking. In the middle of this overwhelming thing called Life, we have family we spend days not interacting enough with because we are locked in the library, trying to convince ourselves one day this will all be worth it. But will it be worth it if by the time that day comes, there are many other days that we've missed? Suddenly the saying "I wish the world would just stop" has much more meaning. The world will probably continue to spin and go ...