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.

a comment i left on a tourist's blog

Sometimes I wonder.

I wonder what your blog would be like if you spent more time on it. It's clear you have some really interesting thoughts. It's also clear that you don't spend very much time on your blog.

I wonder if fire is aware of itself.

I wonder if God is thinking of me right now.

I wonder if my sore throat is just a cold or something more.

I wonder if cancer will be around forever.

I wonder if cancer is aware of itself.

I wonder what it would be like to be in high school these days. With all the cell phones and internets and snap chats and social media. I wonder if I would've had a lot of "friends."

I wonder how the White Elephant Blog Project is going to go.

I wonder if you even know about it.

I wonder if I would be different if I was born black.

I wonder if I would still exist if my dad never met my mom. Maybe I would still exist, but I would just look different.

I wonder if you're still reading this comment.

I wonder how I could write more in this comment than you've written on your entire blog, yet that doesn't bother you at all.

I wonder if I take it too easy on students.

I wonder if I don't.

I wonder how things would've been different if I would've accepted the Hunter High School job instead of the Lone Peak job.

I wonder if my second oldest son has asthma.

I wonder if my oldest son knows his little brother is better than him at basketball.

I wonder if Spotify is really bad for the music business.

I wonder what the temperature is on the moon right now.

I wonder what you're doing right now. What class do you have 4th period? Are you paying attention? Is the teacher just rambling on or is the teacher sitting back at his desk in another world? Does that teacher like his job? Or does he wonder where his life went wrong?

I wonder if my life has gone wrong, or if I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

I wonder why my wife doesn't love poetry as much as I do.

I wonder if Santa is going to bring us a damn cat this Christmas. I hope not. (But secretly I hope he does. I mean, I love cats. I've written poems about cats. I've cried over a cat. I've had a cat stare into my soul and made me question the true nature of God and his creations. So if Santa happens to bring us a cat, sure, I won't enjoy the little turd pissing all over the house, and I won't enjoy the hairballs and the kitty litter remnants, but I think there's room in my heart.)

I wonder if you're still reading or if you've moved on with your life.

I wonder if you've even seen this at all.

I wonder if it matters. I wonder if anything matters. I wonder if my mom is thinking of me right now.

Thanks for reading.

distractions

I write poems when I don't have words for how I feel. And I need poetry now more than ever.

We stare at Google Earth on our computers, but we don't see the world clearly. It keeps turning and turning and downtown there are crazy people everywhere. Crazy people with no monthly payments, talking to themselves on street corners. Crazy people who've never been to a psychiatrist. I'm sure there's desperation in their eyes, but I'm always too afraid to look. 

My contacts are burning right now anyway.

The bell is ringing, but I'm sitting in my living room and my kids are asleep upstairs. The bell is ringing, but class doesn't start for 10 hours. Maybe they messed up Daylight Savings Time. Maybe we're trying to turn the clocks back to see what else we could've saved.   Maybe they never really could save time or daylight or anything.

I'm down to 8% battery on this laptop, and that's how life feels sometimes. But I promise, I swear, the plug is in the next room. I know it is.

My daughter asked why all the horses were getting rained on and I didn't have an answer. My wife said something about the barn being locked, but I was too busy trying to listen to the score of the Steelers game. We all need distractions to keep us happy.

Now that one season's over, I just need another distraction. The leaves keep falling and it's not winter yet, but it feels like it. We've been breathing in and out for months, but only now can you actually see our breath.