Finding Dory in the Face of Extinction

SOAPBOX TIME!!!

Literally the whole plot of Finding Nemo was that people imposing themselves into an ecosystem that they don't belong to is detrimental to the animals therein. The diver took Nemo from his natural habitat and threw him in a tiny glass tank to "help the poor little fish with a wonky fin".
How can anyone miss that theme?

The fact that the Blue Tang is probably going to be facing extinction after the recent premier of Finding Dory blows my mind.

I LOVE finding Nemo and Finding Dory. They're cute movies. I get it. Hey I'm one of those obnoxious millennials saying "I'll push children out of the way to see it because I waited thirteen years for this movie"(joking of course). But come on, how are people missing the point that the human superiority complex is a threat to natural ecosystems?

Guys it's time to wake up. We are not the saving grace of every animal on the planet. And believe it or not, those clown fish (whose population suffered after Finding Nemo btw) and these blue tangs were actually not put in the ocean for the sole purpose of being scooped up and put into our home aquariums.

I am down with the rescue, rehabilitate, and release process. They key word there being RELEASE. Not capture and breed in captivity until it becomes an inconvenience only to release a completely captivity-bred, unaware, incapable population into a wild Eco-system they have no idea how to survive in.
I believe in helping when we're needed and then sending them right back home. They were made to function in the ocean. There is a food chain out there that they fit into and there is an Eco-system depending on them. The disappearance of one single species could topple the entire Eco-system as they all rely on one another for different things.

Basically y'all, go see Finding Dory.
Buy the stuffed animals.
Plaster your kids walls with murals of sea life.
Name your puppy Dory and your cat Nemo.
Go snorkeling and see them alive and well in their own home.
Whatever.

But let the wild animals thrive the way God intended. Leave them alone. Stop pulling these poor creatures from the only habitat they've ever known for your own personal enjoyment. Stop the demand for Blue Tangs in pet stores. Stop the demand for wild animals to be dragged from their homes so they can become a decoration in yours. Don't destroy an entire species because of a movie. Don't force them to face extinction.



And since I'm stepping off my soapbox for the night I'll end on a more pleasant note: for real go see Finding Dory because its the cutest thing ever and I give it 27 stars out of 5 and I love it.

Hero

Hero wasn't a word she attributed to herself.  Wealthy.  Royal.  Trapped.  Betrayed.  Victim, even, but never hero.
It all happened so quickly.  She spent years locked in that tower, wishing for that very thing.  A hero to save her from her fate.
The Prince looked like an angel in the window.  The sunset lit him up in a blazing halo of glory.  It stunned her.  She had known him as a child, their betrothal ensured from her birth.  But she didn't know him as a man.  She gasped, but not from the sight of his deeply tan skin or his handsome smile.
She saw the tell-tell flight of birds.  She heard the scrape of talons.  The Dragon was stalking princely-prey.

It felt like a reflex, like breathing when she lunged for the Prince.  She knocked him to the stone floor just as the Dragon shot fire through the window.  Her hand fell on the hilt of the Prince's sword and she drew it without thinking.

The Dragon was outraged.  He tore into the bricks, desperate to get to the intruder.  To keep her from leaving.  To do his job.  He lashed out with a savage, snarling bite and she acted on instinct.  It took three blows.

Three blows made her a hero.
Three blows made the people celebrate her in the street.
Three blows to save a Prince's life.
Three blows to set her free.

It felt strange to be called a hero, but it was a strangeness she quite enjoyed.

Nights Like This

Nights like this break my heart.
As the rain pours and thunder claps, my heart shatters in my chest.
I see our memories and I miss them.
I miss our laughter until 2 am.
I miss pretend arguing and truly falling apart together.
I miss the way I used to feel invincible.
Nights like this are poison to my healing heart.
And I hope you have nights like this too,
because how true could it have been if you never fell apart?
How much time did I waste if your heart doesn't ache for me the way
mine does for you?
Nights like this make me miss my time with you.
Not the fight.  Not the end.  Not the pain.
But the laughter and the smiles and the feeling between us of trust.
Nights like this make me feel like it's my fault we fell apart.
Nights like this break my heart.

My Truth

Proofread words are my

truth.

Don't believe my "lol" or

"it's ok"

Believe the girl in my 

story

who's dying of a broken

heart

and the boy on the next page who

cant stop

his world from falling

apart. 

Paper and Ink

She lived in a world of paper and ink.
There was nothing out there but the words in her head and the stories in her heart.
The past left paper cuts that hurt when she stretched herself too far from where she began.
But the ink of new stories being printed across her skin held her together.
Sometimes when she cried, the stories on her skin got muddled together.
But the sun would come out, and dry the stains, and leave a pretty new design to inspire her.
It was black and white for her,
but things were more beautiful that way.
The purity was more bright, and the hurt was a more achingly intense black.
She liked the polar extremity and the look of stains on the possibility of life.
She lived in a world of paper and ink and the stories kept her company when the people left.

Prayer

As tears fall from green-blue eyes, she prays again.
Prays for the feelings to stop.
She's drowning in her thoughts.
She's drowning in her doubts.
"I just need a sign."
Her lips don't move, but her heart throws itself against her rib cage.
The weight of uncertainty is crushing her from the inside out.
The tears keep falling.
The prayers keep spilling from her heart.
Her very soul cries for relief.
"Please.  Just let me understand."

On Her Skin

She wore her heart on her sleeve and her past on her skin.

Her cheeks were freckled with long-dried tears and memories.

Years of laughter had lightened her hair and warmed her skin.

Her smile held a thousand stories, and her eyes shone with years of dreams.

She was the embodiment of feeling in a world of fakes.

And the joy that radiated from her soul captivated him from day one.

The Same Stars

They were miles apart.
Worlds away really.
Her head was in the clouds,
in the words she carried in her heart,
in her doubts.
His mind was somewhere magic,
where limits didn't exist,
and reality was no constraint.
But they looked up
in the same moment,
and saw the same sky,
the same stars.
And despite all the distance,
their souls kept fighting to be together.

His Eyes

Looking into his eyes took her breath away.  

There was something there, behind their stunning color.  

There was depth.  

There was beauty.  

There was a kindred soul.

Or maybe she way seeing herself reflected back.  

Maybe it was her, without the cracks and the bruises and the flaws.  

Reflected in his eyes, she was whole. 

There was motion too.

It was gentle, like clouds drifting away.

Or like a light, summer breeze.

In his eyes, her storm was gone.

There was no rain.

No lightning.

Everything was peaceful.

She decided in that moment that if she ever fell apart again, 

she'd just look in his eyes to put herself back together.

Opposing Faces

I've been two people in my life, fluctuating between two faces, two identities.

When I was young, I was who I am now.  Anxious.  Quiet.  Introverted.  Scared.  Shy.

At 13, I found a different side of me.  Loud.  Popular.  Happy.  Outgoing.  Sarcastic.  Witty.

And then, when I was 15, things fell apart and that little scared girl came back.  And I've been her ever since.  I've fallen deeper and deeper into her fear.  Her anxiety.  Her self-doubt.  Her silence.
It felt a lot like drowning without any water around.

Recently, I was pulled from the invisible waves.  It was a joint effort, I did some of the leg work, but he did a lot of it too.  And since then, that 13 year old girl who had the world in her pocket and the universe on her side has been calling a lot.  Right now, it feels like a battle between the two.  As much as I want hope to win, I've lived in anxiety long enough to give it a solid foothold.  But hope is strong.  And so am I.  I know she's in there, that girl who could rule the world.  I just have to figure out how to give her back her throne.

Growing Into Myself

I've finally realized a few things about myself, and I thought that in the case that your drowning in uncertainty, maybe sharing them would help you.

I finally realized that I'm never going to be the kind of girl who can wear heels, and leather pants, and red lipstick.  I'm never going to be a bombshell heart-breaker.  I'm never going to be "cool" or "intense".
I'm always going to be the kind of girl that trips over her own feet.  The kind that considers "brushed" hair as a "style".  The kind who likes to rock polka-dots and sneakers with a dress.  I'll always be more comfortable in jeans than in short shorts or a dress.
My favorite colors are always going to be bubblegum pink and cotton candy blue and I'll probably always use candy to describe color.  I'll always be able to name more crayola colors than U.S. Presidents. I'll always prefer staying in with a book to going out.
I'll always be overly excited about tiny things.  I'll always be awkward in public and spazzy at home.  And I'll always use outdated words like "nifty" and "hooligan" and "snazzy".  I'll always be a hopeless romantic and I'll always have a hard time letting go of the past.

I say all that to say this; until a few months ago, I was surrounded by people who made me think that these silly things that make me who I am, weren't enough.  That I was wrong.  That I wasn't enough to matter.

But I'm here to tell you, that I do matter.  And those people who told me I didn't, they're long gone.  It hurt so much to let them go, like I was losing part of myself.  But now enough time has passed that I'm starting to see the light, and I'm starting to see myself.
I was so lonely that I settled for toxicity in all of my relationships.  Now that all those toxins are gone, I'm breathing clean for the first time in almost ten seven years.  And I like myself again.  There are a lot of things I'll never be.  But I like who I am.  And you should too.  Because no one should be able to change you.  The right people help you grow into yourself and when you find them, you'll know.

Broken Fairytales

There was nothing beautiful about our fairytale.
By the time I found the ending, all the pages were bloodstained and shredded.
Torn apart by the fighting it took to get to the end.
Instead of a glass slipper, I lost my innocence running from you. And you never bothered to try an return it to me.
Instead of a sleeping spell, it was my heart that was broken. And you didn't wake me up, you left me there to die.
Instead of a poison apple, you handed me a mouthful of empty promises and choked on their lies.
You were a prince when I found you, but you turned into a beast. As if my love were some curse that made you that way.
And nothing hurt more than turning to the last page and finding myself alone, without a happy ending.
All alone after the fight I made to matter to your story for so long.

Around not About

She always talked around him.

She liked subjects that brought up his career, his ideas.

She prayed for others to mention his name.

She liked to talk about their similarities and how unexpected they were.

She liked to talk about herself in relation to him. 

But she never said his name,

or talked about his eyes.

Or about how his smile took up her world.

Or how many times she had imagined them together.

She never talked about him, just the exterior things that happened to associate with him.

Never about how his voice calmed her nerves,

or how he could make her sit still.

People thought he was just another planet in her orbit,

but he was was her whole galaxy.  

The glitter in his eyes made up her stars

and he was her everything.

But she talked around and not about so no one would ever find out just how much of her existed in him.

Whispers of Memory

When the sun comes up over this dusty town, and paints us all in gold, I think of how times have changed.
I see the ghosts of memories on every corner, just behind reality.
Visions of us when we were young and nothing mattered but having fun.
I can hear our laughter on the whisper of the wind and it sends a chill of disappointed sadness down my spine.
I wish I could just forget us.
Forget cards under the table and dancing in the street at 2 am.
Forget the smiles and the special places.
Forget the fights and all the accusations.
Sometimes, when the sun comes up, I realize I haven't been thinking about us.
I hope that maybe I'm free from the chains of the past.
But as the sun slips away, all the pain comes back.
And every night, I miss the way things used to be.
When it was us against the world and not all of you against me.

Camp NaNo Project Chapter 1 Excerpt

Blinking slowly, the world comes into focus.  All around, the smell of dirt perforates the air.  A raw pain flares in my wrists and panic clutches at my chest.  I try to move, but the ice cold chains hold fast, their clanking deafening in the quiet space.

      What happened?

      Legs shaking, I try to stand, but my bones turn to liquid and I hit the ground hard.  Sucking in a shaking breath I sweep my eyes around the room.  Nausea crushes my abdomen.  The room is no bigger than a broom closet and my claustrophobia tightens like a vice around my lungs.  Panicking, my breaths come in quick succession. 

Help.  Someone.

Caden.  The name slips through my mind, as my vision darkens, like sand through numb fingers.