One more post for now. Seriously, I'll stop spamming. This is just a poem from a while back. It's not the most cheerful, because this year I haven't been the most cheerful, but I think it came out well.
Snow falls,
thick white flakes edged in lace
climbs high in soft piles, glowing and sparkling a rainbow
in the Christmas lights.
I used to dance on a stage here--cold, alone on an ice pedestal, burning bright
I could walk, run, fly forever in the soft navy sky
but I don't feel it anymore
is it me? Is that really me?
Numb lips stumble over words.
When I see it again, longing swells within every part of me
I want to go home, I want to go home.
I want to go home.
And then in the spring, in the summer, soft breezes will cradle faces as
sunlight brings the world back to life--
bright, lush petals in vibrant colors testing the air,
grass coming up radiantly green under an expanse of cornflower
The ever-present hum of a distant lawnmower, the sound of horses' hooves in a field
the shouting and laughter from children who will run and play, who rest on porch steps, sunning their delicate legs,
their mouths stained from popsicles and bottles of kool-aid.
And in time it will all turn to swirls of fire as the trees take on ruby, crimson, orange, gold hues,
as leaves drift down and leave branches as dark skeleton fingers reaching into the sky.
And then snow turns the world to magical sparkling
Angels' land again.
What time is it now? But--it doesn't really matter.
Ghosts of memories. I don't feel it. I don't feel it
anymore.
Oh, God, I want to go home, I want to go home.
Thick bitter tears fall as pearls in a black-and white photo.
I want to go home.
But I am home
Snow falls onto my fingers and burns my cheeks and nose. White lace world, angels' land--
God, please, I want to go home.
I want to go home.
It's not really a big thing, but...I've been published twice now by my local newspaper for things I've submitted to an online writing project. The first is too long (and cheesy) for me to post here, but the others are six-word stories. If you don't know what that is, it's what it sounds like. People try to sum themselves up or tell an entire story in six words. These are the ones that got published.
Homesick, but I am at home.
Published; they spelled my name wrong.
And here are some more of mine:
18th, graduation, college. This is it.
Life's too short to "just behave".
Blank page: vast mine of potential.
Pen in hand, half-finished story.
Scared to try. Keep trying anyway.
Itchy eyes, sneezing fits, snot, springtime.
Stop looking at me like that!
Beauty is art, art is pain.
Planning what will be: no guarantee.
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...
So yeah. It's kind of a little thing but I'm proud of this. Maybe I'll put some of my other submissions here sometime...in the meantime, if any of you guys come up with any six-word stories I'd love to hear them.
It grabs me by the throat in its piercing teeth, the long white sabers sinking through my neck, choking me off in blood. I writhe, helpless, panicking. It engulfs my body in its hot, moist, rank breath. My head becomes soaked in the viscous liquid it drools out, rolling between its teeth and off its forked tongue because my pain is mouthwatering. The long scythes that are its claws are ripping and tearing at my body, causing me to fall to shredded, bloody pieces,and the horrible helpless agony of it, the prolonged devouring of my skin and bones and life, but
nothing has me, so
the beast is biting, ripping, tearing inside my gasping throat. The bleeding runs down my inner walls. I writhe against an invisible enemy, one that devours from under my skin and boils with rage within my stomach and lungs. Its drool is the thick clear liquid soaking the inside of my head, suspending the contents, thoughts, in a blurred, horribly foul limbo. I am ripped apart by internal claws, my body falling apart even as it is a perfect shell, bloody, raw, scraped innards. It devours my life and everything that I am, that's what it is eating as it tosses its head in delight and enjoyment because it has me. It's eating my soul. And the scream, that comes from a place deep within me, and mingles with the overwhelming fury of its roar.
I'm starting to feel a lot better than I have been, hence the outpouring of creativity and posts (sorry to be spamming your newsfeed like that...I just get so excited about some things.) So anyway....here's my newest writing idea. Hope you like it! Even though few people actually read my stuff.
I see things, vivid things. Art, I guess, in my mind's eye, although I can never quite capture it. Feelings, sounds, such striking images all piece themselves together, and, and the mood, the colors, the feeling and the memories! How could I possibly capture all this on paper? I don't know if the things I see will become reality someday, but I have such strong feelings about them. This may be truth, though some would say that more likely it is only my perception, my brain working with my personality and memories to create such things in my head and in my head only. I hope for the sake of humanity that they are right. And sometimes I hope that they are wrong. I look at my walls and I see them covered in art and writing--mine, and that of others. I see the room this way and as it was when I was a child, serene and peaceful, shades fluttering in gentle breezes that rustle the trees The room is lit only by streaming sunlight, and with the strength of memory, the baby could still be sleeping here, except she is not. There is no crib. The toddler could be bouncing on the bed, but it is not the toddler's bed. There is carefully made art on the walls. Whose hands made these, wonder the last of the human survivors, as they touch the artwork. Then they pull back, staring in amazement, feeling the reverberations of the songs and feelings woven into this work. Mine. In that instant they know all of me and at the same time are aware of how little they know of me. Peace and singing, creation, love, pain, so many things beyond words and green trees and flowers in the breeze, a dollhouse at church and a row of old mailboxes and a crafted wooden birdhouse. Scattered crayons and a child at peace in a car seat, bundled in a thick coat, cradled in the snow, in a parent's arms. Mornings of pale blue dawns and cool breezes, horses and sunrises, dew on the grass, iron gray skies giving in to early day heat coming across the mountains. The mountains. The streams. A life of songs, soft tunes and the car radio. The cars that are rusting to their deaths in the driveway. The cars that no longer work, but they could. Could they? They sing with life lost and what has once been and are hollow for what is never coming back, like the little girl who loved the cliffs and the seagulls and the ocean and the boat, the beach and the sunny hotel room, the day her mother bought her candy on the boardwalk and she tasted the salt and got her hair wet and stared at the endless waves, at the world she would grow up and take on, the flawed world although she did not know it yet, could not know to what extent. She was eager to taste life, to grasp it in her hands, but for the moment she was content to stay snuggled in her sweatshirt on the boat, safely cradled against the cold in her father's arms. And then they gasp and step away. Or maybe not. They are strangers or they are my great-great grandchildren, unaware of the deep connection here. Unaware of everything pressed into the art of this room. The memories. The girl who fought the Death and sometimes let it win. They do not know. They only know that precious sweet life was lost here, as well as countless other vibrant stories. So many potentials lost, and yet still life and still hope, because where there is life, there is hope. Humanity knows it down to its core. To lose hope is to lose life even if the body still breathes. And maybe these young budding humans are overcome with emotion. They bloom. They grow up in that room. Age so much for their young years. The emotions consume them and they stare and think and gasp and breathe, tears falling silent as snow, the snow that the little girl caught on frozen fingertips as she watched her world turn to a clean, quiet magic and the chance to start all over again, although the people do not know this. They catch their tears on their tongues and fingers, or their tears fall into the carpet where my tears and sorrows once fell, although they do not know. I see a vivid sunset in an old overgrown field full of chirping crickets. No human sound. Peace at last, says the Earth without words. Quiet. A chance at life for all my other children. The human vile contraptions break down into much simpler things until the Earth is the place of my childhood, with sweet breezes and lush trees reclaiming the Earth after we chewed them down with our angry metal monsters that do not feel and love to taste the pain and bones of nature, such ugly things. The trees are coming back. Big windows and sunlight. Old mailboxes. Stained glass on a calm afternoon. And this field, this sunset. All that's left to mark all history here is a chain-link fence stretching as far as the eye can see in either direction. Maybe the silhouette of an old bike is visible leaning against the fence. Or maybe it is not. The grasses weave in and around the links, which are slowly rusting away. Soon there will be no more fence. Nothing to hold back the zombies, right? Only there are no zombies. That was an old human concept. Without them there are no zombies, just their echoes. Nothing here has ever heard of zombies. On the other side of the fence is an old water tower, reaching up, its structure the bones of human civilization. Water tower against a vivid sky. And then a human comes walking up, a human, a survivor and an explorer, a carrier of hope and potential, almost ready to sleep just like the day is, just like the world is. That tired calming evening magic is in the air like summer fireflies and the bubbles that children used to blow in the summertime. Bubbles that drifted, were chased by laughing little fingers and small running feet and adults' weary, slightly envious smiles. This human walks slowly, away from the skeleton of the old dead city with clawed fingers still reaching up into the sky. The city that was something full and bright, buzzing too. Just ghosts and memory and what once was, now. This person reaches the fence. Observes it wonderingly as a newborn baby looks at its world for the first time. In a way that's exactly what this human is. Discover. Learn yourself. An old world, a dead world, a whole new world, a baby dawn and new era, sunrise and sunset. You can't change the past, but you make the future. A new time of the dinosaurs, but without them. The human touches the fence and stares up at the water tower, maybe dripping tears, maybe not, maybe thinking and feeling or maybe with a blank mind. Then they begin to walk along the fence, not looking back at the direction from which they came. Back turned on the old city and the flawed ways and the heavy past, into the cool morning and soft night, into the future, into the new life.
