allowing myself a moment of rumination in a world that doesn't seem to have the time, or: pressurized things don't make a lot of sense when they're first released

i told myself i was going to focus on studying this week.
finals week.
finally.
time to regurgitate everything they told me to know in this undergrad world of means on top of means to what is becoming an increasingly uncertain end.
of uncertain ends.

i've been so wrapped up in meeting temporary ends that i neglected to call my mother on her birthday and on mother's day, which are in the same week.
i feel guilty.

i spent all day, my first monday without classes finishing a gigantic project and then sat back and looked at the pile of studying that still awaited me.

i miss writing.

my world has been so full of text book figures and technical jargon lately that i feel like i am beginning to lose touch with the things that passion me.
so many things slipping through my fingers.
always noticed,
i am always noticing,
noting
in my head,
no time between obligations to fully explore.
i thought that you'd tell me but you didn't.
you told me you were being as honest as you could be, but i know that you held things.
are holding things.
i neglected to ask.
it's too late.
i feel guilty.

so i got on my bike
with books
and talked to you as i rode.
when i stopped for a snack, you replied.
"full circle, man. full circle."
you should know, your house burned down.
and suddenly the sources of my self pity seem nauseatingly trivial.
i feel guilty.

i could describe to you in unnecessary detail what makes a circle
and how it is divided and made whole again.
and while i was walking home, i contemplated divisions
and was bombarded with angry voices coming from nearby houses.
fighting in the dark.
and nothing i can do but keep walking.
i feel guilty.

and maybe science isn't the path for me after all.
i want to tear up the roots of these ills, not prescribe them band-aids and tranquilizers.
i want to dig.
i want to photograph it and write about it.
i want to shout about the things that i've been encouraged to ignore.

a tangent.

remember when you said that you felt more sure and optimistic now than you ever have in your whole life, and that you didn't know where it came from, but that you loved it?
i know exactly where it came from.

a thunderstorm just announced it's pending arrival from a distance.
perfect timing.