lowercase musings

i don't know

i guess i'm just sick of these hipster blogs talking about crayons and cigarettes and the moon and the stars and our hearts and the way things used to be and i just want to do something different

i want to do something different, something different

i'm listening to christian rap right now and i want to do something different

my dad doesn't watch the super bowl with me anymore and i don't care how good the wings were

how am i supposed to go to church on super bowl sunday? this feels like a test, and i have test anxiety and there's a reason why i never got a scholarship

my favorite blogs write in lowercase these days and it bugs me, but here i am doing the same thing

i don't have time for punctuation and being an english teacher aint mean nothing to me sometimes;
sometimes i ask english teachers how they doing in the hall and they say

i'm doing well

i say good

i wish i had a bathroom in my classroom

[beatbox]

i wish i had a bathroom in my classroom

uhhh

i spend more time tickling my daughter than i spend listening to her

i wrote a poem about staying alive and this kid came in my classroom to tell me how depressed he was and all i could think of was how much i needed to finish the poem about staying alive

he was right in front of me

i need to do something different

stevie wonder did all these things when he was blind and i guess i just need to wake the eff up and look around

i faked my eye exam when i was 11 because i thought it'd be cool to have glasses

so here we are

Super Bowl Poetry

Let's put our tuxedos on tonight and take our butterflies out dancing, for tomorrow is near.

We're nervous, we're nervous. How long we've been waiting for this. We see everything happen before it ever happens. We'll close our eyes while visions of greatness float around in our minds.

These are the moments we've been waiting for.

We stay up late reading books about soldiers, trying to win the wars of tomorrow.

We wish our bones were light like bird bones, so we too could fly.

Birds and Soldiers, Birds and Soldiers. We are birds and soldiers. Fully hydrated, full of carbohydrates. Full of hope that we might remember the things we've been taught.

The world is watching. The world is finally watching. Are we fast enough? Are we strong enough? The world is watching, but really all that matters is our moms and dads.

We can hear the crowd already, but is mom smiling? Is dad proud? 

The ball never bounces as we expect it to, no matter how much we practice, no matter how much we pray. We'll chase our enemies with torches and one day ask god for mercy.

Our muscles got us here, but our victories will always only be found in our hearts. 

new semesters

Sure, it's starting again and I'm freaking out a little, but not as much as these 17-year-olds who finally get their shot at WritersParis.

I talk about WritersParis as if it's not in the room with me.

WritersParis is bigger than me.

Every semester it gets bigger. With every blog post it gets bigger. Every pen name. Every intro that tries to be different, but not too different. Every photo, every music playlist, every comment.

I keep thinking it's going to get old. But it doesn't. It hasn't. It won't.

It's as good now as it ever was.

I'm even feeling love for the tourists. The ones who aren't reading this right now, the ones who finish their journal pages before I start the music. The ones who stay home from class because everything can be found on the blog. The ones with the hall pass right now, doing nothing. I want to give them their English credit.

Maybe I'm just feeling too much love these days. Maybe I've let this whole WritersParis thing go to my head, and like God: I love all my children. Even the ones who don't know how to show it.

These new semesters are like baptisms and we're all born again right now. And there's something divine about that.

just a class

Just a class.

Just a class.

It was just a class. 

What's it been, now: 12 years, 92 teachers, 49 Mead notebooks, 31 G2 pens, 12 new pairs of shoes,  2300 recesses, 3 Trapper Keepers, 6 lunchboxes, and 14 backpacks.

This was just a class. Just another class.

There were 480 trips to the bathroom, 6 trips to the nurse's office, 38 days you called in sick,  4 broken hearts, 219 pizza slices, 800 drinks from the drinking fountain, and 44 hours on a school bus.

Your time is running out. They're already printing diplomas for next year's seniors. They're already assigning them lockers and planning school dances. The sophomores have begun planning their senior prom and the freshman have their outfits already picked out for the senior dinner dance.

My 5th grader's working on his senior prank, and my 3rd grader is home sick with senioritis. My daughter cried last night because she didn't get in to Stanford. None of us knows what we want to do with our lives, but you're the one that's running out of time.

You're the one who's getting your 52nd report card out of 54, and you're the one who's pretending to hate everything even though you're already starting to miss it. You're the one who's doing everything for the last time. 

That's over 2500 school days, which means that's over 2500 nights of thinking about tomorrow, thinking about tomorrow, thinking about tomorrow.

And here I am talking about yesterday, when all you can think about is tomorrow.

I guess I just want you to think about today.

This moment right now. Here in the little theater. With the dark lights and the bell about to ring and your shoes that you have on right now.

Because not even the magicians can hold a moment in their hands. 

And todays are yesterdays like every tomorrow.

Too young for a mid-life crisis

I'm 35 and I don't know what I want to do with my life.

HOLD UP: I'm living the dream, molding young minds, raising a young family, excited for Monday mornings, passionate, enthusiastic, alive inside.
BUT: I have a gypsy soul and I'm eating government cheese. #jokes

I've always wanted to be something. So now what?

Everything used to be about getting the girl. Then I got her.
Everything used to be about leaving the job I hated. Then I left.
So now what?

Is this all we'll ever do?

I'm reading a book by Ed Sheeran and I want to be a musician. I'm watching a documentary about Johnny Carson and I want to be on TV. I'm watching Muhammad Ali and I want to be the greatest I want to be the greatest I want to be the greatest. 

I'm far too old for this much ambition.

Shouldn't I be living vicariously through my children by now? I think my son has a game next Saturday.

I'm tired of looking at Facebook. Comparing milestones in Instagram pictures. Liking things we don't like and favoriting things that aren't our favorite. Are we really going to spend every Thursday looking back?

I'm sick of feeling sick when I'm not sick.

I guess I just want to be nervous again. I want to be backstage waiting for my name to be called. The way I felt when she came over after I dropped off our prom pictures. The way I felt at 4:30 during my last shift.

Muhammad Ali started boxing when he was 12 because somebody stole his bike. And Johnny Carson filled in for someone who accidentally knocked himself out before a show. And Ed Sheeran blew up in America after playing at a Poetry Open Mic in Los Angeles.

The future introduces herself all the time.
 
What I'm really trying to say is that I'm not ready to start going through the motions yet.

Cleaning House

The house is a wreck, but these blogs are too good. I'm sorry baby, I can't vacuum right now, these blogs are too good.

Our backyard looks like an I spy calendar.
Our house looks like a Where's Waldo book.
But this year's reveal was the greatest of all time,
The Muhammad Ali of Real Talk.
So I'm sorry baby, I can't wipe down the counters right now, these blogs are too good.

Besides, that's a woman's job anyway, right? Like painting your nails, keeping a journal, and poetry. 

This is me calling out every boy in the class (except a few).

Because for every Tom Iansek there was a Celeste, two Eleanors, a Carina, and a bunch of Roses and Janes. And don't get me started on the Cornelias in the class.

James McKay fooled us all and the best boy in the class was some chick named Alice.

Maybe girls are better writers than boys. (Granted there are more girls in the class and there aren't any ladies on the football team and it's hard to hear from the back row.)

But I guess we just don't live in a world where it's cool for boys to like poetry.

I don't blame you. I would've been the same way in high school.

But now I'm different. It's probably because I was raised by girls, I don't know.

Some of you say: well, I'm just not a good writer. 

The fact that I am speaking this into my iPad instead of typing it sums up everything. Writing is not writing, it's just thinking. And if you were a tourist in writing, you were a tourist in thought.

And Trey said he's in jail because he was too big of a coward to express himself.

So to the boys who could do it: thank you. They probably won't let you sit by the knight, but you probably don't care anyway.

Anyway. This post is for everyone, not just the boys who won't read this. 

Thank you for creating such a positive community on these blogs. You read each other's work, you commented, and you built each other up. And you got no credit for it.

There were too many blogs, though. Too many blogs. Too many blogs. I missed so many of them. I missed so many top fives. My heart is overinflated from too many blogs.

There was so much you didn't learn this semester because there was so much I didn't teach.

Some of you have actually been to Paris
And I have the nerve to tell you what it's like
Some of you have lived there since seventh grade.

However,
Some of you have never been out of the state
And some of you will never leave.

[awkward silence while I think of how to end this]

Christmas came four days too early this year. Thank you for that.

This class is Christmas morning. But you don't get Christmas morning every morning. That's what makes it so special.  You still have to put up the lights and find a parking spot at Wal-mart on Black Friday. There are the awkward family parties and the ice melt you have to put on the driveway. Then you have to shovel the driveway and try to fit all those boxes into the recycling bin. And then you have to clean the house all over again. 

Your life is all of it,

it's Christmas morning and the ads on your Spotify Christmas playlist,

and this class was just one morning of your life.

Thanks to those who didn't sleep in.

Sincerely,
Kyle Nelson

ones and zeroes

Imagine a roomful of robots reading poetry to each other.

One gets up and shares an algorithm that makes every machine try to snap its fingers.

There's one about extension cords and one about endless data and one about zeroes and ones and ones and zeroes.

There's a lot of understanding but no tears or goosebumps or changes in temperature.

A hard drive may have overheated, but nobody got cold.

Robots don't get cold. 

I read two blogs tonight that dropped the temperature of my house:
her name was adleen
last thing, before you go

So go ahead without me, because I'm going to spend the rest of the night trying to figure this all out.

Let's spend the rest of our lives trying to figure this all out. 

No, please, keep studying for your science test and keep playing Trivia Crack until you have a winning record. Please. Keep putting your head down during Anis Mojgani's poetry and keep worrying about that ACT score. No, really, fire up Call of Duty or Pinterest or both and find anyway to escape this moment right now.

How can anyone blame you? Your dad gets mad whenever you turn up the heater.

Our lives are just someone else's Snapchat story and we'll never guess the password no matter how long we try.

I have a pile of 10th grade papers that I'm probably never going to grade.

I told my daughter I couldn't tell her a story tonight because we played Memory and watched Tangled and I guess somehow that felt like enough.

Even the ones who seem to have it all figured out somehow manage to do it wrong now and then.

I'll finish this blog post before 9 o'clock because I have to go play basketball and get my temperature back up again.

If you recognize this algorithm, then snap your fingers, snap your fingers, snap your fingers.