Posts tagged creative writing.

prompt: complex (a complex poem)

the little voices
inside of her head
don’t dare to go away even 
when she tells them to

don’t let them break you
don’t let them define you

but from a young age
we learn to judge
to look down upon people 
who aren’t multi-talented, multi-faceted
who smell like whiskey and cigarettes
who don’t have a degree

and there she is wasting away
wishing she were any place
but inside this four-walled
300-seats 
claustrophobium of the arts

but you need it—
you fucking need it

but need is different than want
and all she wants is a chance
to close her eyes 
and not study astronomical 
equations
paradoxical abrasives
that scratch away
what she really cares about

and she’s yelling
at them now

shut up & let me be

but she’s a little too—
no that’s not the problem
wishful prayers leave her mouth 
and tickle the air for a moment 
then fade away with the wind

and they never stop judging
while she never stops yelling
and four years down the road
all she has is a degree in analyzing rhetoric
and a bad case of anxiety 
that ripples through
her like a lightening storm

a tiny interlude

interludes of life and love
in a dark seedy bar
with burly men with thick muscles & mustaches
yelling at televisions
“what the fuck, play ball correctly you idiots”
downing their beers in one long gulp

you were next to me
i eyed you, checked you out 
with my secret sideways glance
a man with a crooked smile, big hands,
and eyes that so endless
that they’d steal your soul
if you stared into them too long

i think you knew i was looking at you
because you scooted next to me
ordered two double jack & cokes
and slid one next to me.
“for you,”
as if it was a medal for being
the prettiest thing in the room

soon we were laughing 
you liked my smile
and tickled my hand 
with your fingers
i thought you were mine
for one night
but it was only twenty minutes
in the bathroom stall

and

i know you’ve done this before
you’ve made a girl’s body
weep with passion
swell with simple joy
like a jar sitting
under the faucet
overflowing with water
and running down the sides
intriguing

until i’m breathless
my hot sticky breath
smelling like the bottom
of a hobo’s shoe soaked in everclear
into the crook of your neck

you untangle yourself from
my dangling drunken limbs

and tell me,
“see you around.”

and i stare at the smudged
linoleum floor seeing dirt
in my reflection

he greeted me
with a smile
that melted my
bulletproof heart (enclosed in a brick palace
with guards who held swords, guns,
anything that would inflict some sort of damage)
into a pool of sin
laced with kerosene & pulled dreams from
the bottom of a dank wishing well
dreams of a happy place
a man and a woman
smiles a plenty creeping
across the face

but everything was twisted convoluted
screwed up like a knot you can’t untie
lies spilled from his lips
like a mess of boiling water & foam from overcooking

and happiness was a thousand-mile
plane ride away among perfect white clouds
away from my life—

he set me on fire the first chance he got.

i survived on two breaths
to tell you i’d never
stop

(abrupt pause that took your breath away
for a moment in time)

loving you

and the last thing i would ever see
tears zigzagging down your face
as you shook your head no over and over again

and they fell onto my cold cheeks

waiting

always burned my tongue 
on hot liquids,
froze my mind with
icy cream & slushes
tap tap tap my pencil, my fingers,
anything on table tops
to pass the time
as i was waiting

but i waited for you

never thinking that time
would stop and
lead me to you

because i’ve been
waiting 21 years to live and love
but was only consciously
waiting for six months
for you when old love failed
& it was only nine years from when i
learned what a prince charming was

i waited for you

and brainfreeze
& the tongue burns
were worth it all

writing exercise, first line is a quote from an author

I write only because there is a voice inside of me that will not be still. It shakes within me like the ‘89 earthquake, tearing down any buildings in its path. It forces chimneys to stumble and crack into driveways. But even beyond all these obstacles, you stand in my way. I know I have to get people to leave me; they stand in my way of what I hope to achieve. I know I have to make them back down with my words that are dripped in fake, unforgiving saccharine, hidden underneath a layer of sharpness. Stand in my way, and I swear it’ll be the biggest regret of your life.

I begin to question the morality of the voice inside of my head. It swirls around the synapses of my mind and it’s bigger than I am— a Jack and the Beanstalk type of situation. The voice always wants to strike and charge at the enemy and tell enemies the way I see them (weak and feeble). And she has no disregard for feelings, her ability to break people into dust be replaying their actions, reporting them back like a tape recorder but it’s live and in person and people then sit in front of me in awe and in denial. The truth stings, but they’re still in denial and I take careful note of this.

The people, places, and things that I’ve encountered in my young life always find a way into my storytelling and as far as the people are concerned, I question whether I’m painting an accurate picture of them. I don’t want their portrait to make them come off as selfish, but it’s the truth. And then I play around with the truth and I feel like I’m violating my own code of ethics because I never want people to look bad, but I want people to look the way they are; they’re just puzzle pieces of broken promises, souls rupturing because they can’t keep their “hearts” to themselves and they wear their “hearts” on their sleeve but it’s really a sad excuse to spread their legs for everyone who comes their way. And then they run, tail between their legs eyes cast down towards the ground because they’ve been defeated once again, the road of loneliness stretched and there’s a river between the part of the soul you value versus the part of the soul that seeks attention. 

But the truth isn’t my fault, it’s just an accurate depiction of how I see these people. These puppets with faces twisted into one look: shame. 

And am I shameful for intertwining these realities within my stories? Am I shameful for listening to the age old advice of “writing what you know”?