stream of teen spirit

exercise #18

Which do you prefer: INSIDE or OUTSIDE????

mumblings of an obnoxiously loud anti-social people person (exercise #18)

Can you hear me?

Cause I think I need to be heard

Can you hear what I think?

Cause there's a need for need, I think

Whisper, whisper, I totally understand

Nothing that escapes from my chaotic talking picture show

Even though

All the voices are in my head

Most of the time

And to talk of clocks and time

I'm glancing too much, wasting too much

I can't stop this addiction to hopeless hope

Five minutes later is only 5 minutes after

The last time I indulged

But I hope not, forever after

I don't know what I am after

So I take it seconds at a time

But like a teen in a car for the first time

I start and stop until

I find that rhythm that's only bad for me

I am the phantom of the opera

The man behind the mask

Behind the glass

But only if I'm comfortable

You dig?

~ chris chaloux, 18, (newfane, vt)

return to the inside (exercise #18)

What does it feel like to return to the world of living outside after living outside?

I felt trapped, limited and bored;wrapped around all the other things that I forgot.  Things that don't really matter.  At Kroka we worked together, as a family.  When I got back home things were not like that.  Only one person did everything (Mom).  I would do what I could but it barely made a dent.  So far from doing things together as a group - nobody helping out. Frustrating.

After a few weeks go by, I forgot what it was like to be outside in nature.  I didn't feel peaceful and joyful.  So I went out there.  I sat in the woods and listened to everything (birds singing, trees rustling together, the sun shimmering through the trees) and felt the earth between my feet and hands.  I felt my heart slowly slow down.  I was remembering who I am.  I'm not this inside person.  I finally felt like me again.  I remembered that I'm strong  and don't need crap in my brain.

I walked out of the woods and could not help but smile.  I felt free again.

~ chelsea denyou, 18, (bellows falls, vt)

outside (exercise #18)

The grass, the sun, just life, enters my body and lifts me up like a double shot of espresso.  I can't help but smile.  Sometimes it feels like I walked into a whole new world.  Sometimes people ask me what it is that makes me smile all the time.  I say "life" and being in a nice environment, taking a break from things that are hectic and taking a minute to stop, look around, taking things in that are positive and taking a deep breath in and slowly letting it out. Smile.

There I was, sleeping in a tent on the beach.  I wake up to the morning song from one of the leaders.  I wake up to the sound of crickets chirping, birds singing.  The sound of rushing water.

I open my eyes to the lightly lit morning and unzip my tent to begin the day.  I smell nothing but the best: dirt and river.  The beach itself has its own smell - it was like the wind blew and brought it like the smell of flowers, fish and the bathroom we used - yet it all combines together and leaves you feeling so peaceful.

~ chelsea denyou, 18, (bellows falls, vt)

inside outside (exercise #18)

The world sees my lie on the outside

But not the broken truth on the inside.

Inside my house, a prison closing in suffocating anger and suppression

salty outside freedom release danger

Inside me is beautiful

Outside is not

 

Outside is warm alive

Inside is cold dead

Outside art is my beauty

Inside sorrow is my ugliness

Inside, outside, Outside, inside

 

Two faces of the same coin

Outside my shield

Inside my war

Outside indifference

Inside car

Outside girl

Inside warrior

The illusion of outside and inside

Inside the prison looking outside

When it’s really the other way around

Inside the family outside the lie

Simple happiness on the inside

Complex desire on the outside

Inside outside, two sides to the same story.

~lindsay osgood, 15, (chester, vt)

it kept us almost warm (exercise #18)

  This winter we lived in the woods… We set up this un-insulated yurt with tarp for walls, a twenty minute walk from the road. When it got cold we spent all morning, every Sunday, hauling dry standing hardwood out of the forest on our shoulders, naked and shining and ready to burn. We sawed it up and it kept us almost warm. It had to be burning all the time because those walls didn’t hold anything and so we had to take in the heat as it came and keep it coming…

              When it got cold everything got real quiet, like the little village where Ethan grew up in Vermont. That little town closed down at 8 o’clock in the summer and you could walk down the middle of main street drinking beer and not see a soul or even worry for a second that anyone was going to come by… Our winter was like that, I guess, accept that we knew no one was ever coming, and when the sun came up and through our thin walls, no one was there but us. We would get up before the light came and in the thin cold light the stove and lean toward it while it puttered and sucked in air and got slowly warm.  We didn’t drink any beer, but after a long cold night hot porridge with cheese and butter felt like sweet drunk release and it warmed us from the inside out.

            After breakfast sometimes we’d sometimes strap on the snowshoes we’d made and walk into the woods, up the hill to the east of our home, along logging trails that were old and overgrown, tracking hares through the dense fir thickets. The hares made low runs that they shared, deep paths that cut under trees and sprinted between small, dark stands of softwood. There’s we’d bend a slender pole and to it attach a thin wire hoop, held open by two twigs. Looking back at it, it seemed so silly because of course the hares didn’t have to give themselves to this clumsy trap…If they wandered into it I knew that it would have nothing to do with my skill but would be all a gift. One day it would happen and it would be like standing in the light of God, knowing the Great Spirit had smiled on me, pitied me and blessed my life with the life of one of my brothers…  I would set a snare and then kneel and pray and ask if I could have one. I would hear them then and they would usually smile and say “no” or just laugh at me.  In the silence of winter, I’d sometimes fantasize I heard the subtle snap, that sound that something had recognized that I was here, that I was a part of that world, that I was like those creatures that needed nothing but themselves and their instincts to survive the deep winter…And then I’d finish, stand up, walk back along the logging road towards home, stoke the fire, strip off layers of wool, mittens of hide and fur. The winter caught us weak and cold, and by some covenant we kept the quiet.

~ deborah alyssa benson & ethan, 20, (maine)

inside outside (exercise #18)

The inside of me is a little crazy. The inside of me will always have voices inside my head.  The inside of me will be dark and sometimes cold.  The outside of me is always smiling and sometimes happy.  The outside of me will always get scratched.  The inside of me will always be hurt.  The inside of me will always remember the past.

~ marissa varga, 16, (chester, vt)

inside outside (exercise #18)

On the inside I am free, I do as I please.  In a peaceful place.  The beach where no one goes but me.  Inside is where the sun shines all day.  Lit up by moon light all night.  Inside is comfortable, no worries, no hatred.  Inside is where I like to be.  Can’t make mistakes, can’t screw anything up, can be by myself. But inside isn’t real life, it’s not reality.  Outside is a cold hatred world where you don’t have any say. Where you get put into a family you didn’t choose.  On the outside it’s not so peaceful.  The inside isn’t always “la-di-da”; it’s a place to cry and scream – to let it all out.  But on the outside that’s all anyone does.  It’s funny how it turns out – on the inside you can have your cake and eat it too.  Inside when it’s sunny and clear, outside it rains all day.  But when it’s rainy all day it’s from all the tears that are shed on the inside.

~megan blake, 14, (chester, vt)

inside outside (exercise #18)

Inside my head is a jumbled mess.  Inside my heart I’m still thinking about him.  Outside in this world that’s slowly turning black there is a complicated life lead by a hard to read girl.  Inside there seems to be nothing wrong but once you walk through those doors ahead you’ll see maybe outside isn’t all one big horror.  There’s one boy I would love to be with all the time & if that means staying outside day and night I’d do it.  The way life is now makes you think that you can be who ever you want to be.  One thing I’m truly afraid of is that one girl waits by these doors sitting, staring, and hoping I’ll finally walk through them.  Maybe inside is just a place I think I’m safe.

~ kaitlin k., 14 (chester, vt)

KAITLIN ~ INSIDE ~ PODCAST

inside outside upside down (exercise #18)

Inside outside, upside down

Twirling around in my mind

Thoughts I can’t control, thoughts too loud to hear

 

 Inside outside upside down

The earth is spinning, can’t control it

Around the sun, too bright to see

 

Inside outside upside down

I look and I see, my thoughts

Project images that aren’t true

Unfortunately, they unfortunately project

True images

 

Inside outside upside down

One thought leads to another and my

World gets turned all the way around.

Which way is up? Will I ever come down?

 

Inside outside upside down

Bring me to the real world, out of my shell,

Out of my imagination

Show me the truth of

Earth. Tell me that it is possible

To be myself, possible to be

Inside outside and upside down

 

Inside outside, upside down

The earth is spinning, can’t control it

Around the sun, too bright to see

 

Inside outside upside down

I look and I see, my thoughts

Project images that are not true

Unfortunately, they project

True images

 

Inside outside, upside down

Bring me to the real world, out of my shell,

Out of my imagination

Show me the truth of

Earth. Tell me that it is possible

To be myself, possible to be

Inside outside and upside down

~ taylor lefevre, 16, (chester, vt)