Month: December 2018

So I’ve noticed yet another habit I’ve “developed” since being here at MSA. I love taking pictures of trees. Why? I have no clue. Remember that lovely picture I posted in the last blog post with Chloe and the tree? That’s just one of the many pictures I’ve taken. 

 Here it is! Chloe seems to also have a habit – ruining my beautiful shots. She’s always in the picture somehow, which is actually somewhat amusing. If you don’t think she’s there, always look at the sides or in the corners. You’d probably find some of her hair there because of the wind blowing, and all that stuff. 

It’s strange, but I love the vividness of the greens, oranges, yellows. And now, they’re gone. Winter is coming, fall is leaving. Fall did its job, making the trees beautiful before wiping it all away, but oh well. I have the pictures. In fact, here’s a couple of them! 

 A nice little collage of my nature shots… I don’t really know why I’m so attracted to the trees. Probably because where my house is located there are no trees. Just fake grass, sand for dirt, and all that other lovely stuff. Hmph, oh well. Although, just like every other kid, I always wanted a tree house. Of course there was always one little problem: we didn’t have any trees. For a good bit of my life, we stayed in apartments. I think it was around maybe fourth grade when we moved into a house. But alas, no trees still. But it had a huge yard, so I had room to play, and there was a shed where I would mess with the pool table until my parents kicked my siblings and I out of it for safety reasons.  

Anyway, I love trees. They’re just really pretty to me, and I enjoy looking at them. I’m contemplating making a story that is almost like The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, but not exactly because it wouldn’t be a children’s story. You’ll find out more after I’ve written it.  

The first sign is in my hands, their shaking is the warning before it all starts, then the trembling explodes into every part of me. It feels like an earthquake in my soul. I can feel all my cities breaking and collapsing in my chest. Then, I lose control. You know how when an impact is so severe, one tends to lose consciousness? I guess this is kind of like that. The impact of the disaster going on inside me takes away my sense of being, leaving my body flailing for some control. My thoughts race faster than the speed of light, which leaves a blackhole in my mind. Nothingness. Blackness. I’m so cold, but I can’t feel anything. I hope death isn’t as blank.

Once I begin to hear a voice, I cling to that voice like a rope that is going to pull me out of this infinite emptiness. That voice then becomes my lifeline, and I get terrified when I don’t hear it anymore. I’m floating somewhere between nothing and everything, and I am trying to pull myself out but have nothing to grab onto until I hear that voice again or another voice that will bring me home. I climb until my body begins to vibrate.

It’s the best and most terrible feeling when my body regains control. I finally know that I’m alive, but I am welcomed back to Earth with a million knives digging into my nerves and my brain trying to break out of my skull. My vocal cords slowly wake from paralysis, and I want to cry out but can’t. I can feel the nails being hammered into my heart as my cities rebuild, and the child within me cries. The first willing twitch is almost scream-worthy, but I hold myself together as much as I can with a terrorized core. My first words are fingernails scratching my chalk-board throat, but once they are out, saliva begins to pour from my glands. Opening my eyes is like falling. There is nothing to focus on until my entire body makes landfall.

The last things to come back are my emotions, and that sometimes takes hours, maybe even days. My body is awake, but I am numb.  There is nothing left in me to cry or get angry, I can’t even fake a smile because I don’t care. There is absolutely no life to my feelings, and there is something so poetic about that. When they do come back, it’s almost like rain. It begins with a little trickle, a warning, and then a moderate pour. I have learned not to fight the flood, but to float in it. It washes me of the pain, though only temporary. It gives me peace.

After all has recovered, I continue on with my life. I try to fight stress off like a hive of wasps, but there will always be another. I wait. I wait for the earthquake to unleash. I wait for my shaking hands.

So, I wrote this poem for a competition and it’s supposed to be pretty metaphorical. Let me know what you guys think.

 

Dinosaurs love turtles,

I’m telling you- really- it’s true.

Stegosaurus love turtles,

And turtles love them too.

 

Turtles love stegosaurus,

I know that for a fact.

Their big mighty friends

help them reach in tree for a snack.

 

Dinosaurs love turtles,

You can’t argue with that.

The turtles climb up their neck,

and the ‘saurs wear them as a hat.

 

Some dare to think

the two can not be friends-

Only because in the ecosystem,

they are on separate ends.

 

Ones big and tall,

ones short and fat,

but, if they want to be together,

why shouldn’t they do that?

 

Well, turtles can eat meat,

and dinosaurs can too.

They’re both the same colors,

and share one sky of blue.

 

Dinosaurs can eat plants,

turtles can too.

They seem pretty similar to me,

don’t they seem similar to you?

 

Turtles come from eggs,

just like the dinosaurs

So, if they’re from the same place,

why should there be wars?

 

Dinosaurs and turtles-

they’re different, but the same.

The only thing separating them,

is their title, their name.

 

Dinosaurs love turtles,

turtles love them too.

If you want to argue, and say it isn’t true…

Take a look at those ‘different’ people around you.

 

 

Okay so like originally it was literally just gonna be a poem about dinosaurs and turtle. However, as Kerri Bland, I had to put something really symbolic and lesson-giving in there. I’m hoping it kinda evokes a feeling of happiness, but still hits you, y’know?

Yet, I don’t have a specific thing the dinosaurs and turtles are supposed to represent. They’re just dinosaurs and turtles.

The idea for this piece in particular came to me while I was making sugar free hot chocolate in a cactus cup, and then realized I had no straws to stir the powder with. It really kinda ruined my day, but it made me think about turtles. Please save the sea turtles.

As for the dinosaurs, I just think they’re real cool. Like, they’re just big creatures that we use to make plastics and stuff. sometimes we dig up their bones in our yards. Its like unintentional grave robbing. Thats kinda cruel, but still. Then we put them on display to show people what we found while unintentionally grave robbing. Sometimes that thought keeps me up at night.

Anyways, let me know what you think!