Late Night Muse (a poem)

Late Night Muse

Written September 11th, 2011

I watch them

I see them all

Lonely, heartbroken, and defeated

It’s in their posture

As they walk down the hall

I’ve been there

Felt it all

I’ve been in that fall

They ask me

How do I do it?

How do I smile,

How do I keep going?

They say

It isn’t worth it

Not at all

It just ends up in tears

They always fall

(Raise Your Voice) Me Being Me (a poem)

Raise Your Voice

Me Being Me

Written July 12th, 2011



There’s a little car racing along

Bright paint sparkling in the sun

And a girl leaning out the passenger window

Tapping a beat on the door to a lively song

Her long hair flies back in the wind

And she has a smile

Big enough for the whole world

Enjoying something simple for a while

The people in town watch her go

And smile quietly to themselves

Remembering the infectious grin

That helped ease a deep sorrow

Music Hallway

Music Hallway

Written June 6th, 2011

The soft smell of old must

Hinted in the air

An aged and well-loved carpet

Tread on by generations of shoes

A troop of elderly pianos

With chipped keys from extensive use

A din of music resonates

Echoing lightly on the walls

Here, here we camp

Soaking it all in

The years of bygone memories

The traces of personalities past

Fragments of talent, left behind

Drifting in the air,

Clinging to the walls,

Sleeping in the shadows;

You just have to look with your heart

We rest here, absorbing

An escape from the fast-paced world

A time to rest, heal, and create

A second home to wandering young souls

Just trying to find a place

This is the Music Hallway.

---

A tribute to the music hallway at my high school, where so many teenagers, including me, just love to be. It's like a light to moths.... And this is where, I'm sure, Mikey's spirit wanders on occasion.  



The Corridors (a poem)

The Corridors

Through the empty meaningless corridors we walk

The pale gray brick holding us in

For some this place is hell

For others a haven

Me, I am not sure

Some days, I am surrounded by smiles,

On others

These cold eternal corridors

Transport empty, dead faces

Whose emotionless eyes gaze at the floor

But whether we are elated or empty

The walls don’t care

They are only there

To hold us in.

---

Inspired by a day in school earlier this year when everyone just looked depressed. Maybe it was a monday.


Ice Cold (a short story)

Ice Cold

            I remember that day being especially cold.

            It had been nice all week; we were having luck with the fall weather. So that morning I didn’t put on a coat, just a hoodie. As soon as I walked out of the house to wait for the bus, I knew it’d been a mistake. But I couldn’t turn back for fear of missing my ride. Mom would be madder than hell if I woke her up because I missed the bus. So I gritted my teeth and walked down the driveway.

            It was the type of cold that seeped right down into your bones and made them ache real bad. It was the type of cold that left your insides freezing long after your skin had warmed up again.

            The bus didn’t come right away, so I paced back and forth, like they say you’re supposed to in order to keep warm. AS my shoes crunched back and forth over the frost bitten pavement and I was shivering violently, I couldn’t help but think what a load of bullshit that was.

            I had never been happier when the long yellow vehicle finally came to halt in front of me, the sweet relief of the heater melting away my goose bumps.

            At the time I had just taken it as an indication that the winter season was staring to take over, and feeling angry about it. I could hardly stand the thought of pushing through another long New York winter, my sweet summer so far away.

            Looking back though, and knowing what I do now, the biting cold was almost like an omen.

*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.