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Haley Banc Sep 2013
What happened to your arm?
Box-cutter at work
What happened to your arm?
My roommate’s pit-bull
What happened to your arm?
Scraped it on a fence running from the cops ha-ha
What happened to your leg?
Sliced it while shaving
What happened to your leg?
The ocean, uh, tossed me around pretty good this weekend!
Hey, what happened to your leg?
My roommate’s pit-bull
Again? You really should say something
He’s just playing
What happened to your arm?
Accident at work
Another box-cutter?
Yeah.
You should really be more careful. I know.
Haley, what happened to your ribs???
Must have been drunk, I have no idea
Haley, what happened to your leg?






And I wait for a meteor to crash into the earth.
Haley Banc Aug 2013
When it’s too early to sleep but too late to cry
And everyone else but you seems to care when it’s appropriate to do either
The skin just above your lips tastes of salt
Your nostrils and skull under the same pressure
Clogged with mucus and doubt, both trying to escape
Can’t seem to get out
So it sits there building up until you draw in
swallowing
Mucus, doubt, confusion, all absorbed into your body, filling the empty spaces from the last time you cried
You drift off to sleep, and pray the sheets are not drenched with the leaking mess when you awake in the early afternoon.


I wonder if you know how much that song affected me
I know I called you and told you how timely it was, that text in the middle of talking to Tiana
Lauren? Lauren. So out-of-the-blue, it was like you knew.
Still, I wonder if you know just how much it assisted my decision...
How I walked for hours wandering Brooklyn listening to that song on repeat hoping for a sign
How my world stopped when I first heard it
How I kept it from anyone who might have needed it because I thought I needed its magic all to myself.
I thought that song would give me an answer. Maybe it did.
I might have known the answer from day one. Sometimes I feel like I did, and I just didn't know how to handle it.

All it really takes is one line and I’m in
In like
In lust
In love
"I’d rather you give up on life in the city then give up on life too."
The connection convinced me it’s mine because I understand
And no one else
But that city chews up and spits out more people than downloads of that song
I don’t know that for sure but I bet it’s true.
Still, when I heard that line and a few others before it, I felt it was God singing them to me
This could have been because I was looking for a sign. It could have fit so perfectly into my situation because I am not different at all in this aspect of my life; a lot of people go through this (and possibly even the band, resulting in the song itself)
I haven’t listened to it since I left
And right now, I’m thinking that’s a good thing.


Call it selfish, delusional, illogical,
Call it what you want but sometimes
Like I told Laureen in the St. George dorm
Sometimes, a lot of the time, I believe
The world revolves around me
Isn’t that normal though?
Everyone’s view of the world is through their eyes
So their life is, well, them.
Maybe it’s bad to think my life will be a movie or a book one day
Maybe everyone thinks that, or maybe not
Maybe I’m a narcissist.
No. I’m too fragile. I’m too caring. I’m too understanding.
Wow, I might as well have said, I’m just too great to be a narcissist.
Haha, got a laugh in, that’s good.  


Alison wrote me a letter the night before she left
And gave it to me that morning, standing on the concrete sidewalk outside our building
100 Henry Street. Room 336
The hostility I had been feeling for months vanished, replaced with too many emotions to decipher but guilt leading strong
Her letter may not have been three pages long
It may not have been written with multi-colored sharpie markers
It may not have been as visually pleasing as mine
But it was perfect. And she was the only one who wrote me back.
I read it when I need to, which is probably too often.
One line.
"To be honest Haley, you are very ******* yourself and sometimes you simply cannot make a choice and I want you to remember to keep breathing."
One line.
And more than one tear.
Every single ******* time.

Maybe because it’s true.
The second I read it, I realized she was right
While all year I loved to prove her wrong
Alison, congratulations, you’re right.

But you’re also wrong (see you can’t win)
It’s not that easy to keep breathing when your
Nose is filled with mucus and your head is packed with confusion
And your nostrils are stuffed with the leaking confusing from your head
It’s not so easy to keep breathing, then again you didn’t say it would be
But it’s not so easy to keep breathing when you don’t even care if you stop.
Haley Banc Jul 2013
Today was a good day
I’m trying not to ruin it
Too late, I think I just did
Nope
No.
Not yet.
Still Good.
Alright.
Now what?
Haley Banc May 2013
Sunset warmth
It's beautiful
Golden light
Is less than perfection
When you are next to me
Soaking up the rays
and reflecting them back
Making it more beautiful
Than the sunset could
Ever be
Haley Banc May 2013
Is it sad I’d rather die than see where this goes?
It is sad I’d rather cry than allow this to compose?
I know it’s sad when people say life is short
But it’s even worse that I wish mine, were different
I feel like I’m at my last resort.

So many tell me to sit and figure it out
But then a bunch more say it’s better to let go of doubt
“Don’t worry, be happy” Been said before
Sounds great and all, but easier said than done

How do you all let go of your dreams?
Is it just that easy for you?
Life isn’t what it seems…(yeah I know)
But why can’t it be the truth?

Forever is impossible to reach,  I’m coming to terms with fact
But in fact maybe I can find that place
Above all the stress and worry that is my life
Somewhere else would easily suffice  
Somewhere outside of my head
Somewhere from before I was three
A place where my thoughts, my heart, and my future were free

Now I’m trapped
Confused is the better term
Totally lost is more appropriate, actually
I can’t even tell you how to explain it all factually


I wish there was a time I remember when I didn’t feel this way
Ask me, Ask me the last time I was happy
I wouldn’t know what to say

These have to be my darkest ages
If I’m mistaken just count me out
I’d rather it not get much worse than this

Pathetic but sometimes I wish I had an excuse
To feel so dead
Hoping for a reason to drag on (this way)
Hanging by a thread
My first poem, second semester of college. Not my best. But I wanted to get it out.
Haley Banc Mar 2013
I am a perpetual plain of green
My arms sway as grasses caught in the wind
My hair a tangle of vines caught intertwined

As my body lay on the hot ground,
The vegetation wraps around my waste
pulling me into roots
Soon to recycle me into one of their own.

A perpetual plain of green
Vibrant in the sun and dry amongst the clouds
Strangle me—knot the weeds around my heart
I cannot cut through the thick roots
So I let the garden grow
Around myself, on my body
Until I am…

A perpetual plain of green
Living with tall grasses as limbs
And tangled vines as hair

I wait for the field to perish
For the vegetation to turn weak
So I can fight my way out
Crunching the dead as I crawl away

But I am stuck in this
Perpetual plain of green
Located in a never-changing climate.
Caught. Caged. Continually.
In this perpetual plain of green.
Haley Banc Mar 2013
little Dreams, small Goals, and tiny Hopes
you should crave for nothing more
this will grant you happiness, this will offer peace
There is no such thing as disappointment
or discontentment, or displeasure, or dissatisfaction
when you acquire only
little Dreams, small Goals, and tiny Hopes


When you desire only
such things that are within arm’s reach
or near-sighted view
Nothing is a let-down
It can all be done reasonably
And stress will only be something you witness
In the lives of others, others who crave more than
little Dreams, small Goals, and tiny Hopes


Poor romantics
And visionaries
And idealists
Their days must be spent
Thinking of all the ends they will never cross
Fantasizing of all they long for...
I warned them, I tried to help them
“little Dreams, small Goals, and tiny Hopes!”
Yet some did not listen


Now look where they are,
Witness what they have become
Nothing less
Than
Great Dreamers,Enormous Achievers,and Vast Seekers
Nothing less
Than
Creators, makers and originators
Desiring, doing and obtaining


Poor ones, who just won't stop
Those who just could not listen
To the advice
from a little Dreamer

They must be miserable…
March 3rd, 2013

"I wish I had smaller goals. Little dreams. Small hopes. I wish I didn’t want so much.
Then, life would be easier. When you want something so big, so rare, and your chances are so slim, you live your life slumping around depressed and unmotivated to make it happen.
This is me. But how terrible would the world be if people didn't dream big? How ******* pathetic would that be? I still don't know which is better: to set realistic goals or dream as though anything is possible. They both have downsides."

My journal entry above inspired "little Dreams." I was having a hard time figuring out which side I was on, so I wrote a poem to clear-up my view.

— The End —