(Raise Your Voice) The Truth (a poem)

Added to 'Raise Your Voice' collection May 25th, 2011
The Truth

You
And your nasty words
That cut deep like a knife
Right into the life
Of someone beautiful
Who used to smile
Before they met you


They
Don’t know what to do
Just let you cut deeper
And deeper
Picking them apart
Revealing all of their insecurities
To the world
Leaving them weak and sore
Crying in the corner
Thinking they are unloved
Unwanted
Discarded

(Raise Your Voice) The Dark Secret He Keeps (a poem)

Added to 'Raise Your Voice' collection May 25th, 2011
The Dark Secret He Keeps

No one knows

That he cries softly in his room at night

Muffled in his pillow so his family won’t hear

So they won’t ask questions

They can’t find out

They can’t know

He doesn’t know

What to do himself

What to think

He tells himself it isn’t true

So much he almost believes it

He doesn’t want to know

The boys in class don’t know

How much their words hurt

They’re mean to him intentionally

But they don’t know just how deep

What they say really goes

I’d like to think they’d stop if they knew

Time Never Stops (a poem, intended lyrics)

~Time never stops~

Time….

Runs backwards when these miles separate us

There’s an eternity between each time you embrace me

Every step I take you take two back

But I push forward through the minutes

Till exhausted you finally grab hold of me

And then you give me the strength

To keep going when you’re gone

So the cycle can keep on

Somewhere Between Winter and Spring (a long poem, unfinished)

Somewhere Between Winter and Spring

The rain on the windows did pelt

And thunder crashed overhead

On that dreary cold night

Somewhere between winter and spring

The streets running with snowmelt

And mud crawling with suffocated worms

I lay with covers pulled up to my head

Wide awake, filled with fright

I remember a bright lighting flash

Streaming into the glass pane

Temporarily burning my sight

And upon which it did clear

I realized in this room I was not alone

He was a tall, leering shadow

The doom of his arrival

Accented by an earsplitting thunder crash

To my bedside he began to draw near

I wanted to ask him who he was

Wanted to throw my head back and scream

But my throat was dry, my tongue too thick

My voice sewn shut with fear’s seam

I wanted to race out the door

Out into the lawn that was rain-slick

Yet my legs were numb

Seemingly rooted to the mattress forevermore

A Drop of Water (a poem)

A Drop of Water

I am a little drop of water
Falling from the sky,
In a thunderstorm,
And I land in a stream,
Which gets wider and turns into a river,
Where boats ride past me
And the other water droplets
Until the water comes to a waterfall,
The boats branch off to another part of the river,
And I keep going
And fall of the edge,
With all the other water drops
And I am flying with my comrades
Until I land at the bottom

A collection of short poetry

Crickets, cicadas- chorus of night
Climbing trees, basking in the sun
Open my window; it's summer
---
In the forest by the pines
Sat a little ring of mushrooms
I kneeled to pray while faeries danced about

I Am (a poem)

I Am

I am a bored girl that thinks of imaginary worlds
I wonder about tomorrow- could it end up in mine or someone I love's death?
I hear voices in my head, telling me what to do, speaking of the past, saying my imaginings out loud
I see creatures from somewhere else
I want to do something that will affect the world, or at least one person's life, in a good way
I am a bored girl that thinks of imaginary worlds

*Named By Fate (a short story)

Named by Fate

“Alice.”

“Alice!”

“ALICE!”

A hand grabbed my shoulder and I jumped violently in surprise. Jessica leapt back from me, not expecting my dramatic response. After a moment she rolled her eyes and tossed her perfect blond hair indignantly, regaining her pristine composure.

“Honestly, Alice, are you ever tuned into Earth?” Jessica sighed, handing me the updated game and practice schedule.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, but she had already moved onto the next person.

I stuffed the schedule into my bag.

As I pulled out my CD player, I wondered if people who had different names were destined to be different. I mean, all the smart kids had names like Edith and Edward. Old fashioned names. They could solve math problems that usually required a calculator easily in their heads.  Then there were the Hopes and Trinity’s, all such nice girls who talked to everyone and stopped to help a kid pick up his books that he’d dumped all over the hallway. And Quinton would be the only kid in school whose name started with a ‘Q’. He would be the class clown, and would probably be a rich stand-up comedian with a show on Comedy Central before he was thirty-five.

            But what about the girl named Mercury who asked to be called by her middle name so she could feel normal? What was my special talent? The ability to be anti-social? I glanced around the bus. As usual, I was the only girl curled up against the window all by her self, while the other twenty-one Varsity and JV girls filled the bus with the awful racket of mindless chatter. On top of that, I was the only one with a CD player, which had been on the endangered species list of technology for at least five years now. Also, there were probably only two or three other girls on the bus who willingly listened to the Beatles. There were the fashionable blonds, the funny brunettes, and the good-time red-heads. Me? Natural black hair. How dreary.

So these are my talents: I’m anti-social (by choice), crappy hair, appreciation of technological dinosaurs, and an eccentric music taste. Great.

*Redemption (a short story)

Redemption

             

            When I woke, I immediately noticed how bright out it was. Usually I woke up in the misty gray hours of dawn, but the air was golden, and the leaves in the upper canopy shimmered in the light, the rain drops they held sparkling like diamonds. The forest was alive with sounds of busy animals rather than the sleepy quiet of daybreak. Through the thick canopy I could make out the position of the sun. I was aghast to see that it was nearly at the peak of the sky. I had slept in for much too long. I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration. I couldn’t afford to sleep in! I had finally started to get ahead of the recusant General Kyzen and his pertinacious tracking hounds, and I couldn’t lose my lead.

            No sooner had I realized my predicament when I heard the sound that made my stomach clench and my hands get clammy with the veriest fear. A chorus of bays and howls shook the woods, ringing in my ears. They could only be a few miles away. Birds chirped frantically and took flight. Oh, if only I could fly away to somewhere safe like them.

*Remote (a poem)

Remote

I wish I had a remote

With buttons for pause and rewind

I could use it like a boat

To sail across the oceans of time

And re-visit the moments in life I've left behind.

My remote wouldn't have a fast forward button

Because what would be the point of life

If I saw it all in a moment of curious glutton

And knew every joy success, downfall, and strife?

And if I skipped every obstacle

I'd never become wise.

So let the future be a surprise

That I carve out for myself

*Sweet Baby (a poem, intended lyrics, dedication)

Sweet Baby

Full of innocence and beauty

I wish you could see

All the smiles that you brought

And all the hearts that you caught

In your little hands

The sparkle in his eye

As he told me of you

*To Ban Or Not Ban (a thematic essay)

To Ban or Not To Ban

A thematic essay on William Golding's Lord of the Flies

Written December 2010

William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies is highly controversial in today’s society in many ways. Lord of the Flies offers a chilling and terrifying view of a situation where a group of boys are stranded on an island together and forced to survive without adults and their authority. Their civilized ways slowly digress into savagery as the instinct for survival takes over the need for order. The reader can only watch helplessly as this group of boys loses their childhood and innocence to instinct, cruelty, and even murder. This realistic situation was designed to express Golding’s theory that “man is inherently evil,” especially when there is no authority or law to suppress it. Ironically, despite the excess of violence in the novel, Golding’s work won the Nobel Peace Prize for literature. Golding’s winning of this prestigious award is one of the controversial subjects over this book. Other debates over the book include interpretations of symbolism, quality of the ending, the writing style Golding used, and how long the boys were actually stranded on the island. However, one of the fieriest disputes about Lord of the Flies is its appropriateness for use in schools, including its accessibility to children and young adults.

*Angels (a poem)

Angels

I was certain that I could hear beautiful angels singing in that moment

As the dying sunlight streamed in through the window

Lighting up the green and underlying gold

Of your hazel eyes… so captivating

It was as though even the angels were envious

As you kissed my lips so gently, so carefully

Were you afraid that I might break into a million tiny pieces?

Betrayed (a poem)

Betrayed
-Written February 27th, 2011

I sit here before this blank page
A threshold to emotional release
An entrance to my mind
For all to interpret

And yet I cannot describe
What's inside
For once I am speechless
Empty
It's strange for me
Because words are my specialty

An English Love Story (a short story by Bruno Winterman)

An English Love Story

            The rain hit the cobbled street hard and ran in rivulets down the hill. It made a loud ringing sound on the corrugated tin roofs of the houses that merchants and street performers were hiding under.  The rain was fast, there was no warning, and only a clap of thunder and then the storm came.  The sky was gray and the street urchins who play in the alleys and sit on the corners are all hiding from the storm.  But not Richard Lancaster, he was safe in his carriage on the way to meet the love of his life.

These Are the Days (a poem)

These Are the Days

These are the days
When everything you eat falls to ash
At your lips
And even after you swallowed
The taste you wish would go away most
Remains
And your stomach is in pain
From digesting the delicacy
That was your favorite yesterday
Or any other normal day
But not today

Sweet Dreams (a poem)

Sweet Dreams
-written February 26th, 2011

Love came
To the door of my life
I let it in
With wide-open arms

It filled me
Made me whole
I soared to hieghts
I'd never been before

But as is
With all beautiful things in life
It did not last forever
Dreaming of what could have been

The Golden Haze (a poem)

The Golden Haze

Summer is coming,

The forest is holding its breath,

Summer is coming,

The birds are returning to nest,

Summer is coming,

The snow is falling less and less

January is coming to a close,

Third quarter for students had arrived so soon,

Groundhogs are checking their shadows,

Slush and mud fill squeaky shoes

Summer is coming,

 There are buds on the trees,

Summer is coming,

Water droplets falling never cease,

Summer is coming,

Sportsmen are hanging up their skis

Squeaky Shoes (a short story)

Squeaky Shoes

Today, I ran into an old friend.

            It was a strange, how something as simple as going on a toilet paper run could bring you to something as complicated as a blast from the past.  Just a plain old Sunday in a plain old Wal-Mart, and a particularly wet parking lot that made my shoes squeaky.  I hated squeaky shoes, ever since the 7^th grade, when I owned a pair of sneakers that sounded like ducks even when they weren’t wet.  I had often been stared at, and I had relied on the noisy babble of kids to disguise my noisy shoes.

            And then I rounded the corner, emerging from the toiletries isle, and bam. There he was.

*Catfish (a poem)

Catfish

Little tiny girl

With bright light

Captured in her shiny curls

Peering into a bucket of water

At the catfish her dad plans to slaughter

He was putting up a fight

When first caught

But now at the bottom lay still

His only movement the flickering of a gill

Knowing that far from sight

Is the freedom he sought.

*Death on the Horizon (a poem)

Death on the Horizon

Horizon turns gray

Banishing the black

And so appears the first ray

Sending the stars back

But the light does not shine

On a single river or pine

No- just a forever wasteland

Endless expanse of dusty-dry sand

And from a cold mountain cave appears

A young girl, small for her years

She sits at the very edge

Of the miles-high ledge

*Little Tiny Swallow (a poem)

Little Tiny Swallow

Little Tiny Swallow
looking down at me
sitting high up in the rafters
out of my reach

Who's that pretty little girl
sitting by your side?
Did you pick her for her graceful twirls
or did her beauty hit you like a warm tide?
Did she look at you
with those lovely little eyes
or did you like those shiny gold feathers- was it then you knew?
Was it then you said; "I shall make her mine"?

My Sweet Nothing (a poem, intended lyrics, dedication)

My Sweet Nothing

Walking towards me

I peer up and smile

Corners of your mouth lift

slightly, barely,

No one else notices

But a flower of compassion

Blooms in me with an explosion

So forceful I feel sick

You noticed me

my imagination?

*Reflections (a poem)

Reflections

I look in the mirror
I do not recognize the face I see
She looks the same as she always has
But her eyes- her eyes
Are haunted and hollow
From troubles to wise
For her age

*The Ocean of Empty Souls (a poem)

The Ocean of Empty Souls

As the bus turns into school
I see the kids on the corner
Smoking their life away
Flirting with the technicalities of law
Where will they be in ten years?