What do you think of my new glasses

I asked as I stood under a shade tree

before the joined grave of my parents, 

and what followed was a long silence

that descended on the rows of the dead

and on the fields and the woods beyond.

I’m starting an educational blog!

This is going to be so exciting! (I just hope people are interested)

Expect nothing less than awesome, and by that I mean: lesson plans, activities, new codes and laws, book suggestions, photos of the projects my class makes, pictures of how retro and cute my outfits can be, rants of my day, question and answer sections, and just an all around honest blog of a new teacher.

I hope my excitement, passion, enthusiasm, and intelligence can be felt through this upcoming blog…..get ready!

Only problem….I need to think of a fun name!

Give me suggestions!

I wish I could apologize for my absence, my loss of words, but it’s almost as if the silence has become my only solitude, and here I remain without words, and without you.

There was nothing else to say, but the silence was so loud it became a sound that tore down the world around us.

I am a writer at heart,

and it’s sometimes difficult to explain

exactly why this is the love of my life,

because it seems so natural to me,

as if, there is no other way for me to live.

Poetry, words, the art of pouring my

heart and soul onto these tattered pages

is the only way I can truly express the

thoughts and images dwelling in the

darkest corners of my mind.

I feel sometimes as if the blood running

through my veins has transformed

to ink, and if I were to cut,

the most beautiful black spotted words

would pour forth and break your heart.

I write because it is the only way I can

quite the tangle of words swirling

in my mind, and to show you the side

of me that you haven’t bothered to see.

I write because I love the power of words

and the way they can change the world,

I write for you, and I write for me,

and somehow I can’t explain it further,

I write because that is all I wish to be,

a passionate, eccentric lover, wielding my

sword of words for all to read.

I am a writer, take me or leave me.

He found me when I was broken,

just a collection of memories, torn and

discarded pictures, a mess of a girl who

spent nights finding love at the bottom of

whiskey bottles, screaming at the cold

silhouette of my past on the bed sheets.

I had given up on myself, I was lost,

filling my body with the sweetest poisons

and when my mind was blurry, I would

dream of running away, just driving until

I found a town where no one knew my name.

I romanticized the idea of abandoning this town,

without any notice at all, simply erasing my name

from the humid corners of the bars I once loved.

And right as I thought I was falling,

finally hitting rock bottom, he caught me.

There was something in his eyes, when we

exchanged a look, it was something I had

forgotten existed in people, he didn’t pity me,

there was no sorrow in his stare,

no, there was hope.

It was as if he knew me, just by locking

his stare with mine, like he knew my past,

feeling the pain and stories my

hazel sight spilled to him that night.

And that hope that I sensed from him

was illuminating, and I begged my heart

and mind not to trust him, but there was

this sensation he emitted, a reassuring mannerisim

pleading with me to put my trust in his hands.

And that’s exactly what I did.

I had already given up on myself, but he saw

the beauty through my pain, and in that moment

I knew he wouldn’t let me run away,

he would make sure I wouldn’t hurt anymore,

he was the hope I was looking for all along,

I just never realized it.

Some nights I lie awake

and dream about what it would

be like to never wake up again.

It sounds like a morbid daydream,

this I know to be true, but it’s not

the idea of romanticizing death,

no, but the mystery and bewilderment

that the concept of death brings me.

And perhaps it is just me, but I think

about death in the strangest way, as it

is all around us, and unfortuntely

it’s an inevitable conclusion we can’t escape.

The thought of life ending, the absence

of rhythmic heart beats, of fluttering eyes,

is almost too much to bear at times,

and at other times, it could sound

like the sweetest solution.

But I think about what awaits me,

the darkness that will consume my mind,

because I believe that this world is so

brilliantly beautiful, there just has to be

more waiting for me on the other side.

I wonder who will remember me, and how

they will retell stories of my existence,

have I made an impact on someone’s life

without ever knowing the pain or love I created?

Will my words surpass my breathing, will these

tattered pages survive my demise to change lives?

And you, I wonder mostly how you will remember

me and the nights we shared together, whispering

our secrets to the humid summer nights

wishing on airplanes we mistaken for stars,

and tangling ourselves in our spider web of sheets.

I sometimes dream of death in the most beautiful ways,

wondering, hoping there will be more beauty on the other side.

Our bodies were soaked in that

Tennessee poison, and the moon

hung so low that we felt pressed

to the wooden porche, with out backs

prickled by the rogue spliters.

I saw him out of the corner of my

eye, his broken glasses bound

together with green tape, his

tousled hair almost begged my

fingers to run through it that instant.

I felt my face glowing red and

when my sight was a little blurry

and my limbs felt heavy, I asked

Want to go swimming?

Sure, he replied, with darting eyes.

I began to remove my clothes, shirt

first, then shorts, I stayed in my bra

and tight pink panties. I could feel

his stare fixed on my curves, the

burning from his gaze was enough

to set my tiny frame on fire.

He rmoved his clothes and we

sunk into the water, leaning our

necks on the edge of stones to

keep our drunk bodies floating.

He never swam over to me,

kissed me on the lips, or even

confessed any hunger in his heart.

We just floated in the warm water,

he taught me to blow smoke rings

and I giggled at his stories of

the road, but that was all.

No love story to be told, only the

one I had created in my mind,

dreamt of at night but  never came

true that night where I wated to

reach out and touch the moon.

He called me his sunflower,

said I reminded him of

those remarkable flowers

always caught half way

between living and dying.

My little spurts of happiness

the glow reflected off

my smile, the brightness of

my heart lighting this whole town.

But then there are my sudden

plagues of sadness, depression

where I remain in bed

for days on end, wallowing

in self-loathing, that’s

why I’m a sunflower.

I notice the beauty

in this world, but soemtimes

I allow the ugly, miserable

truths to take possession

of my mind, filling my

heart with hate and misery.

Sometimes I feel like

I’m wasting away when

there is no beauty in this

empty world to look forward to.

I know I can’t be alone,

at some point we are all caught

in this real life purgatory,

but sometimes you just can’t

help but to be a sunflower.

I have spent countless nights

wishing on stars, and have wasted so

many precous humid afternoons

staring up at the clouds in the sky,

daydreaming my sanity away.

I’ve sat with this pen sewn into

my dainty palm, pouring my heart

onto these tattered pages, and

I would pretend that my blood

had turned to ink, that the words

would simply flow from me.

And then something changed, I could

see it hidden between the hazel tint

of your eyes, but the silence hung heavy

on my parted lips as I searched for the man

I once knew, and the words to bring him back.

And that’s when the distance truly

began, it was like this strange force

was separating us at a rapid pace.

I remember nights where we would lie

face to face, with the tips of our noses

brushing together, whispering our secrets

to the darkest shades of the night, and

we would wake up tangled in the sheets

locked in a warm embrace.

I remember when I would smile just

at the sound of your name, and you,

oh, how you looked at me, it was as if

I was the only splash of color

in this gray washed town.

But something changed, and when

I wake up each morning, with your back

facing me, I wonder how we have

become strangers to each other.

Some nights I lie awake, thinking that

maybe if I could remember the exact

moment where things began to

unravel, when the spark in our eyes

first began to dwindle, the precise

string of moments when we slowly

started to drift away from each other,

that perhaps I could change things.

If only I could remember what created

the growing distance between our hearts,

if I could kiss you from this haze, if I could

just get you to remember me, and the way

you once loved me, maybe you would come back.

Ok, so I’ve been kind of MIA because of FCATs and teaching as of late, but my school does this “field day” thing where we spend a day doing outdoor activities and races and it’s really fun for the kids, and I’m suuuuper excited!

We have to come up with team names for our class, and they are used to alliteration themes. So I need help/suggestions/fun ideas for a name for my team!
I want to surprise them with some great ideas, and I need some help!
My last name is McCool, could you give some fun suggestions for names for our team?!

Come on, it’s for the kids! And the winning vote gets put on team shirts and I’ll have a ton of pictures!
Please help!!

I beg you, please stay away from me, I fall in love far too easily.

It’s times like this when the moon

is much too low, and the sky bleeds

the darkest shades of blue that I sit here

and dream about you.

It has been so long since I have felt the

warmth of your touch on my cheek, and

inhaled the whiskey infused breath from

your lips into my tired, tar stained lungs.

Forget the sweet words, it has felt like a

lifetime and a half since you have left.

And do you remember that day when

we sipped miniature bottles of vodka

on our flight up north?

I wish we could have stayed in that memory

forever, that strange realization that we

were a fixed moment in time,

we were neither here nor there, but instead

caught in between reality and the clouds above. 

I wonder how many people watched the flickering

lights on our plane illuminate the darkness

and close their eyes tight, wasting wishes on

what they thought to be a star.

But just think, in that moment when we were

in a million places at once, but sat fixed,

staring into each other so intensely,

while I was wishing it would never end,

someone saw the brightness in both of us,

and mistaken us for stars,

oh how wonderfully I shine when I’m with you.

So, I need some suggestions/advice with thinking of an activity for wrapping up this unit for my 8th grade AP Reading/Language Arts students who read The Hunger Games.

We read the book as a class, alternating between whole class “popcorn” readings, and silent reading. Those were followed by discussion questions, vocabulary, quizzes, activities and finally, a test.

My classes have been approved to go on a field trip to go see the Hunger Games movie and then go out to lunch, on April 9th. I’ve organized this entire thing, and I’m exhausted, but even more excited to see the look on their faces when we get to enjoy the movie as a class after working so hard through the unit! They deserve it.

So, I wanted to have one more day of covering the Hunger Games and getting them pumped for the field trip, (I think it will be fun!) but I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions for some activities and maybe a craft that they can all make. I want to have the room set up into stations with games/activities/one craft to work on and then rotate with their small groups. These still have to be educational, so I was thinking maybe a “Trivia” station, like a Jeopardy game or something. Also, maybe a game (like the ones in those teen magazines) like, “What tribute are you most like?” Where they can answer questions and the answers will use a variety of adjectives and encouraging descriptions of character.

I’m really struggling to figure out the other two stations, and I’m not really the most crafty person, but I thought it would be fun if they could all make something small to wear on their uniforms to the field trip.

So pretty please, from one passionate teacher to another, if you could make some suggestions for an educational activity and a simple craft idea, I would greatly appreciate it! Oh, and I promise to post pictures of this day, for which I also plan on dressing up as Effie. Yes, get excited!

I have run dry of these ink blotted words that once poured from my skin like the darkest shades of night, I have become just a shadow, a silent dreamer.