PRETTY PRETTY PIKCHURS

I finally got around to making scans of my lit mag pages!

The Sea of Ashes

Painted

Release

And if you're really bored, you can take a look at the other pages I have on there. :D They're pretty sweet!

In other news: I'm going out of town, thus no post on Saturday and no replies to comments until Monday. Have a great weekend!

Publication Celebration! Part Three of Three

For a long time I'd wanted to write something about an insane person, something with a maniacal edge; something chilling yet somehow beautiful. It took months of thinking and drafting and proofing before I came up with "Painted," and the more I read it, the more I think that it really reflects a part of me. This was written to be performed in a poetry slam, so I've included stage directions to paint a more vivid picture. Enjoy.

Painted

(Do not make eye contact with audience. Introverted, insane, girlish voice. Stare at the floor, twist feet, walk in circles, rock back and forth, twirl hair, bite fingers, etc. Look up occasionally but not at audience.)

I can’t share.
So I’ll put these words in a cage,
And lock them away,
All alone in my head,
Till they all become dead,
And not me instead.

I built a stronger cage this time.
I didn’t poke holes in the lid,
So the words will suffocate
Like ladybugs in a jar.
And it’s better they die
Than I.
I do not lie when I don’t want to die.
(Staccato words, short and clipped) I don’t want to die and I don’t want to lie...

Last time I tried to lock up my words,
They escaped through the cracks
But I kept a secret
All locked up in my head
Like a bird in a cage,
That slowly I strangled,
Slowly slowly slowly so it didn’t
Make
A
Sound,
And no one will ever have to know.
Now I can dream about the bird and draw it and paint it...

(sudden realization, look at audience, shocked)
As an obsession, a horrible horrible obsession,
Hundreds of crimson paintings of ice spikes and electrocutions,
Trapped, suicide, war, death,
I can show them to people,
I can think that they’re beautiful but I know the things they mean,
The hidden stories,
The painting I never finished because I never found what I was looking for,
And I (choke, gasp)

(return to first voice)
It doesn’t matter.
They never found the bird I killed.
They never found the cage I built.
I just told someone
But I lied.
I still have a secret.

If you listen close, I might share my secret,
But only if you promise not to tell,
And I’ll know if you’re lying,
So please don’t lie to me
(No lying please.)

(I don’t want to lie and I don’t want to die)

(turn back to audience, mutter to self, pace)
NO!
You can’t trust them
They’re going to tell,
They’re lying, you can’t trust them, can’t trust them,
Their promises are lies
I don’t want to die and I don’t want to lie,
Because lying is bad.
Bad people lie like the ones you can’t trust,
And if you trust your brain turns to rust,
So being alone is a must is a must,
Being alone is a must,
I’m alone in my head with the blood that is red and the bird that is dead--

(turn back around) (scream) GET OUT!

(look shocked, cover mouth)

Publication Celebration! Part Two of Three/AP Completeification Celebration

I took the APUSH test today and totally killed it. Rachel studied me into a stupor (literally) yesterday, along with Hannah and Alyssa. I really think I'm not cut out for the whole "studying" thing. We were supposed to study an hour and a half every day for the past month while we reviewed in class. I think I might have maybe studied an hour and a half total. Boberg (my teacher) was so proud! of me when I told him I'd studied half an hour by myself two days ago, lol!

Today's publication celebration piece is more on the heavy side, or the dark side, I guess you could say. Because of this poem and the one I'll post next, I'm notorious in my class for killing birds (and babies (but don't take that the wrong way. It's a lit mag joke). Actually, I'm pretty much notorious for killing things, period). Not that I've ever actually killed an animal on purpose (although I very nearly ran over this retarded pigeon who wouldn't get out of the road and then flew up into my windshield).

But enough blab. Here's the poem.

Release

I caught you from the sky,
{Little bird}.
Your heart beats so fast,

A thrum of [life]

in my palm.

I plucked you from the flock
And now you [s t r u g g l e] in my grasp

Try your best to escape, but

{Little bird}!

You are in MY control now!

And I’m not about to let you go

Because I want you to suffer...

[just like me],

{Little bird},

As I snap your feathers

one

by

one,

I leave you f l i g h t l e s s,

Leave you [grounded].

My fingers are stained in crimson,
And as my tears drip on your breast,
My light begins to die...

[just like you],

{Little bird}

It’s slowly that I realize
That as I take your life away from you,

Acting God,

Playing Reaper,

As the beating of your heart hits a

[r i t a r d a n d o]

And your eyes stare into mine and
Beg the question: why?

I’m not sure I know.

Because I’ve lost everything [else] in my grasp,
And I need to find some r e l e a s e.
I need to know that

something

else

is hurting...

[just like me].

Publication Celebration! Part One of Three

To celebrate the fact that the Lit Mag is done, I'm posting the three things that I have published in the former. First one is called "The Sea of Ashes," and if you can determine what it means, let me know. xD I still haven't figured it out.

The Sea of Ashes

There was once an ocean here in this standing place. I remember its waves which nibbled at my toes, telling stories of distant shores and fantastic other lands; its fresh-scent foam, the breeze laced with brine. We went swimming in the water and found shells in the sand, dancing across oiled feathers and blackened baby bones.

Oceans don’t drift away; they burn. They rage. This ocean blazed many months ago. This beach turned to glass, twisted and transparent, rising and falling like soft-lifting silk. The waves tore over each other, spiraling pinwheels of light as far as the eye could see. The earth echoes an anthem of burning; do you hear it?

Now the salt has been replaced with ash. It feels like a funeral, a great cremation of the entire earth’s teardrops. Listen quietly: you can hear a hymn whispered in the white. Embers lead a procession, and the birds speak a eulogy, but there are no tears. They, too, are ashes.

I can’t tell you what color your eyes are now, or what the sky looks like. Grey isn’t a color. But here is something I do know: you can see the earth’s heart today, under our feet. It is red, an anger, and it pulses and dances as though it is alive. If you look just right, you can see through the world, through the center to the other side. It is a great glass globe, an ornament on a cosmic Christmas tree.

Can you smell the smoke? On a certain day, you can still feel it on your tongue, but it might be the people, too. It didn’t take long for them to come creeping from their holes, the people. The fish-corpses hadn’t even finished rotting before the concrete went down. People couldn’t wait that long. They needed something familiar, something to hold them close and comfort them. All they had was cold, dead asphalt.

The moon is pulling strong today. It longs for something to hold, just as it once plucked at the waters like symphony strings. All it has left to cling to are the people, the fish-corpses and concrete. I hope someday it will pull me away with it, and I shall dance in moon ash to feel at home. Perhaps the stars will have stories to tell, of distant worlds and fantastic places.

Perhaps the moon was an ocean, many millions before, and the smoke caused the earth to weep an ocean. Perhaps the sun, too, and the stars are oceans, and soon we will spin in an eternity of glittering glass spheres, chiming in perfect harmony as we dance around each other and spread ocean ashes like snow, until the dark universe is coated white.

The Archives: Halfway Words

In other news: The Bingham Literary Magazine went to the printer today! Copies will be available in about a week and a half! I was published 3 times (once with a prose piece entitled "The Sea of Ashes" and twice with poetry pieces entitled "Painted" and "Release") and I put in one picture I photomanipulated called "Listless Wondering." Yay!

Now back to our scheduled programming: While looking through my GoogleDocs (otherwise known as my writing storage unit, or WSU), I noticed I have a bunch of poems I started but never quite finished... I'n't that a shame...

But I thought I might stick a few of them on here. Who knows? Maybe I'll finish them someday.

Free

Am I really free

When I have to watch what I say

The sounds from my throat

The words on my page

In case I insult someone:

“Dear Lord, how did you get so fat?!”

Or maybe I’ll say something wrong:

“I know, right?! I don’t know!”

I’m so limited by Propriety,

The things I can and can’t say

Because I shouldn’t drop my baggage on other people,

Even though most of us are smouldering from uncontrolled fires

And if you look beyond our empty words you’ll see

The pain and the hurt and the anger

And all the things we wish we could say to each other because

‘The truth hurts.’

I can’t trust anyone because I know I’ll find my mistakes on the airwaves eventually.

[untitled]

Please don’t touch me that way.

I’m trying not to care,

because caring hurts,

and I’ve had enough of that.

When you look at me with those satin eyes,

my heart wants to melt,

but my body resists.

It remembers what my heart does not.

My muscles ache when I think of you,

my bones break when I get close to you.

You’ve lost your chance.

As much as I love you,

It will never be enough,

Not after all you did and after all you didn’t do.

If you loved me, you wouldn’t hurt me,

and though my heart yearns for you I won’t fall again.

I’m caught in the loop between your indecisions, pulling one way and pulling another, and all it’s done is strangle me.

Words

Words are ugly creatures.

They slip over my tongue like serpents from an ancient curse,

They bite and hiss and spit and scream,

Slither around my teeth and on my breath,

Fly out of my throat and into your face,

And all they ever seem to do is hurt!

There’s no taking back these words.

Once I’ve released them, all I can hope is that they only get you,

And that they don’t end up back in my face.

Their slippery bodies are impossible to grasp,