Category: Junior Literary

there was a boy named dallas in my kindergarten class. i cant remember his last name but it doesn’t matter because  i loved him. he smelled like those prepackaged mandarin oranges you can buy in bulk.

i would carry my love for dallas home every afternoon, in the curls of my baby hairs and the paper cuts on my knuckles. i would carry dallas everywhere with me, like he was pressed lilacs or baseball cards. I would walk home with my mother, hand in hand, her palms turned inward, hiding the scars on her wrists, and I would make sure to stop at the house on the corner, the little blue one with white trim, to stop for a fleeting second, just to watch his bus drive by.

dallas had dimples and wore crayola marker stains like canvas paint. I thought he was beautiful.

when i moved schools my mother stopped walking with me. i would trace the sidewalks by myself, the lines in the earth like the broken lifelines on my mother’s palms. I would purposely squish the cracks beneath my chubby toes. i was usually late.

…

i always imagined kissing would be sweet, delicate. hollow kissing, like dancing with bird bones. i always imagined the regular things like graduating top of the class and dancing at prom and praying before every meal were stained into the religion of my adolescence, not worn as a blanket I could shrug off at fifteen.  i think it’s strange how things change as time unfurls, the way the ferns are unfolding outside my bedroom window.

my new house wilts when it rains. my mother is always sleeping in the bath with the door open, the last time I went to check on he running water I saw the blood and the body and-

…

i am the daughter of misfortune and dependency and it’s not complaining if it’s the truth.

I don’t talk about my father much because there isn’t much to say. i don’t want to be my mother but i am i am i am, and it hurts the way the leaving does but here is the pain that i felt when she left.

…

there are bodies inside of my body, there are lungs within lungs within lungs in my chest in my throat and i want them all to breathe at once, but each takes their turn while the others are choked down to my hips in pooling green ivy.

so much breathing. the in and out and i think about you a lot more than i should. i say that i shouldn’t not because it’s not nice to think but because i cannot explain the way i think when it’s about you.

i am having trouble calming my mind. the blood is green and sopping and thick like the sweater i have stitched on my body since seventh grade, and i am so tired.

i imagine all fairies drooped over their guest beds, quietly becoming their alcohol poisoning.

like tinker bell with tunnel vision. neverland fading in and out of view from tiny, blinking irises.

i believe it is fitting how my faith is dust.

Seizure Warning: Extreme flashing lights and rapid blinking. 

Scatter(ed) scatter(ed) scat t er (ed) and a (  . .a..)(..r..)(..m..) length away from..~you~ 

 Once upon a time the world glitched. Then stripped static people counted on numbers to be heard. A hundred million people stayed that way and people died that way. Puncturing holes in eye sockets to fit the big screens. Headlight hairs pointed towards the crowd-s morbid curiosity. They all blinked in unison.

I have always feared the dark

In the dark a hand is not a hand

a hand does not belong to you

a hand does not exist 

In the dark each finger is a stranger

they wiggle to poke holes in your skin 

Each one betting on who can scar the most

each toe a long lost relative

They stand at attention and in the dark 

they rage war on the bed-sheets

 

 

Mr. Man didn’t believe in good luck. 

He promised me fifty gold coins if i could do a back flip off a cliff 

I lowered the bet to twenty five. 

He asked why.

“I don’t need fifty when i’m dead” 

 he said Yes but why twenty five?

I didn’t want to answer that question

so i jumped

The flight was great. 

The food was like heaven on a platter 

The boys and the girls were wonderful 

Munching on the high atmosphere like a last meal 

The soft shatter of windows and the implosions were electrifying

my toes wiggled in the confides of my metal shoes 

The seat belt tugged up my neck 

My ears bounced from my head 

It was my first time flying.

Her kisses were sweet 

Every rapid touch of parted  lips sent cavities to my core 

my sticky fingers tangled in a mass of curly chocolate hair 

Or teeth smacked bubble gum tongues 

We rolled in the mass of too sweet sweets dripping sugar 

and canes

rows of attentive buyers lined the streets 

eye wide and sapping 

hands itching-twitching on jumpy legs 

fingers flying down rough material 

and clutching flimsy paper bags 

Bells chimed in time 

each count ticking down flashing shutters 

frigid palms gathered old candies 

and bodies bounced around bodies

 .Blood. – .Red. – .Hues. 

The talk of the town

is covered in red

and pink dripping sin

Laced too tight across

bouncing a chest

The man of the house 

cross eyed and bushy tailed 

his hair flops across his eyes

frail fingers lace in the bounding locks 

and tussles the disobedience out of wolves 

we call those women 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have an unimaginable hatred for speaking. I don’t like the way words feel as they make their way up my throat. My ears ache when I have to hear my own voice for too long. It’s an odd thing to have to deal with because at some points of the day or the week I might feel like imputing on a conversation or voice an opinion of mine, but I don’t feel like it. Talking takes a lot of energy. 

I once read a book about this girl who went so long without talking that her parents put her in a mental institution because they thought she was sick in the head. Psych  doctors tried to trick her into speaking, but she had gone so long that she just didn’t need to. In her point of view, she explained how little talking people actually need to do. Her friends and parents could tell when she was upset just by the way she acted- no speaking required. Facial expressions conveyed when she was happy or sad or frustrated, etc… Anyway, at the end of the book they didn’t even get her to talk, she fell down the stairs or something and had to talk to doctors about the pain. I don’t really remember. I just know that in the end she did what she wanted to and was happy. 

I don’t know how that correlates to me other than the fact that I’m afraid my mom will put me in some psych ward. I just don’t like speaking. It does make it hard to form relationships with people that don’t already know me or how I think, and that’s an unwanted side-effect. 

~

Another thing I can add is that I haven’t had a whole lot of inspiration for writing lately.

(as you can tell by this post)

I want to blame it on putting so much into the short story and play that we had to do for our nine-weeks test, but it’s probably just me being obnoxious to myself. I’m not really sure. 

This post has no real meaning. I have nothing that needs to be said.

(no pun intended) 

An update: Since making this draft I have differentiated my lack of speaking for, usually, not caring. I guess that should have been apparent from the beginning, but I like to be hard-headed, even against myself. I figured this out mostly by just being around a person(s) that I genuinely wanted to be around; I had so much to say to this person- things that I had thought I was comfortable keeping in my head, but I guess not.   

 

I started writing a book, and I’m super excited about it.  It’s pretty ambitious for a first book, but I’m going to attempt it anyway.  So far, I’ve only written first drafts of the prologue and some of the first chapter, but I have all of the major plot points thought out and charted.

The plot centers around six wizards, one white, one green, one purple, one blue, one yellow, one red.  My concept is that there has been one wizard of each of these colors since the beginning of time, and every time one of them dies, a new one is born that takes the last one’s place.   The only way for one of the wizards to die is for them to use all of their magic which is measured by how long their beard is.  Every time they use some of their magic, their beard shortens a certain amount based on how much magic the act required.  It will grow back but only as quickly as a regular person’s beard would in real life.  They, of course, have plenty of time to wait for this because they can live to be centuries old.

When the plot begins, the reader is first introduced to Ulk, a giant ogre who absorbs energy from the sun and is incredibly strong and in the middle of destroying a village.  As he does this, an army approaches.  Ulk begins fighting the army effortlessly because of how powerful he is.  The army keeps him distracted as four of the wizards, Sylfaen the White, Rockwell the Purple, Garamond the Green, and Bauhaus the Blue, all use their magic together to create an enormous disc in the sky that blocks out the sun over the valley in which Ulk is destroying the village.  Suddenly, Ulk is vulnerable to the attacks the men are attermpting.  This enrages him and causes him to go into a frenzy, killing soldiers left and right.  This gives time for the wizards to cast another spell, putting the ogre to sleep.

This puts an end to Ulk’s reign of destruction.  The wizards walk toward the slumbering beast.  Sylfaen the White, the oldest and most powerful of the four wizards present tells the others that have done well, but Garamond the Green disagrees.  He is enraged that Sylfaen allowed Ulk to take so many lives for so long when they could have stopped him far earlier if Sylfaen had called them together to do so.  Bauhaus the Blue tries to tell Garamond that he should accept that Sylfaen, being their leader of sorts, is very knowledgeable and most likely had a reason for allowing Ulk to exist for as long as he did.  Garamond is beyond the point of reason, however, and teleports away leaving behind a cloud of green smoke.

Sylfaen says farewell to Rockwell and Bauhaus and teleports away to the place he believes Garamond most likely went, Mazakala, a neutral city in the middle of the continent where the wizards meet to discuss the state of the world and also where wizards are raised from birth and eventually trained by the other wizards.  When he appears here, a nurse who takes care of Calibri the Yellow runs to him and tells him that Garamond grabbed Calibri and disappeared again without a word.  This leads Sylfaen to the next place he is sure that Garamond must have gone, Riobe, the domain of Malgun the Red, the sixth wizard who isolated himself from the others long ago and rules his domain wickedly.

Sylfaen stands before Malgun’s giant red clay tower and calls up to him.  Malgun confirms what Sylfaen feared, that Garamond brought Calibri to Malgun and died in the process due to how little magic he had left from the enormous task he’d performed.  Sylfaen knows that he is not powerful enough to retrieve Calibri and does not even know where Malgun has him hidden away, so he leaves because there is nothing he can do.

The plot thus far is contained entirely within the prologue, and the first chapter picks up a century later when Calibri and Castellar, the next incarnation of the green wizard, are both roughly 100 years old.  I won’t reveal anymore about my book at this time, but I am extraordinarily excited about it and can’t wait to write it.

Since I got to this school, I have piled myself in makeup. I think I do this (no, I know I do this) because I each time I look in the mirror, I see just a couple more flaws. (It must be because of the shock I had from all the beautiful people here. Perhaps I feel the need to catch up. (I write all of this as if I am guessing))  I don’t like the way makeup feels most times.  But I hate what looks back at me when I go to the bathroom.  ( I tend to use the big stall because I like windows).  In there, my reflection is unavoidable.

———————————————————

Usually, I don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “hey, lemme pile some dirt stuff onto my face, not just because I like how it makes my face break out, but also because it feels WONDERFUL.”

Sometimes I put just enough on in the morning, a little here and there.  Then I go and look into a mirror to fix my hair, and compulsively, I put more.

I wasn’t always like this.

At the beginning of tenth grade, I prided in using minimal makeup only on special occasions (I used to wear none. I thought I was “makeup abstinent” (I never liked how makeup looked on my peers.  I knew they didn’t need it)) .  As the year progressed, I grew a need for concealer.  I felt dead without it. (This is a sort of lost virginity, the beginning of addiction)

It continued from there.

(I don’t want to tell the whole story, or maybe there’s really no story to tell…) I think this need for a second and new face has sprouted quickly from that small seed in tenth grade.  It’s now a vine that won’t quite let me go, (I’m kicking) and I’m fighting but it keeps pulling me back.  My eyes have resorted to a daily screaming for help (eyeliner dries my eyes) because my skin is too muzzled and quiet (and dry and covered) to call out.  (my screaming eyes might also be because I’ve lost my glasses).

 

You are the girl in love with an artist

Or maybe

You love him and he doesn’t return that feeling

 

Because he is still in love with the girl who’s heart he broke

You are trying to fix a man who does nothing but break other people

And he will hold you in his hands like palettes and paint brushes 

He will paint the love of his life on you in the same fashion he creates strokes on his canvases

His love for her will be staring back at you in the middle of your hallways at 2 am while you are getting water after a heated paint session 

And you will know that you cannot satiate his lust because you are not his modern day Mona Lisa 

His hands will be covered in paint, just as his lies are covered in sugar

And your mother told you to never sugar coat anything, but here you are on a Sunday morning lying to your family about how in love you two are 

He is an artist and you are a writer

And you’d think that’d be a match made in heaven 

Yet he obsesses over a dancer who now belongs to the world instead of a man who continuously tries to capture her in every image he creates 

To him you are canvas, fresh and new 

But she is his favorite shades of purple and blue

Her eyes are always blank in every photo because that’s the only expression he remembers her having 

And he will splatter orange and red on you

Soon you’ll be purple

Black and blue too

4.6.18

—you tether it.

how does art mean anything?

does my art mean anything?

how can i make what i do mean something?

how can i make this matter?

can it help me make sense of Everything Else?

---

recently, i watched a video (more like a feature-length film) by a youtuber called itsamemyleo, or myles for short. i first watched it on a sunday with my brother, then i watched it the following monday while i packed for school, then i watched it the following tuesday with a friend who lives in maryland. every time i watch it, it feels a little bit different, but i haven’t quite figured out what that different is yet. upon each watch, i notice something new or make a connection that i hadn’t fully realized the last time i saw it. little offhand sentences hit me like trains, while other bigger lines blow by like leaves across my feet.

this film is basically like a really long vlog, and that’s all i’m gonna say without spoiling it. it’s a vlog in the same style as all his other videos, one that makes it feel like you’re watching a movie. it’s his first video in a really long time, and you can tell he devoted all of that time between his last video and this one to just making this one. and it’s something that must be watched all at once, not with pauses in between random minutes. you have to find the time to sit down and absorb it for everything it’s worth.

all i really know to say is that it will inspire you in ways you’ve never been inspired before. i don’t wanna say it will change your life because that just sounds cheesy, but like essentially it will change your life. it’s made me do a lot of thinking about my life and my family, which i think it a good thing and a bad thing? i can’t quite figure out how to describe it, but maybe it makes some odd form of sense somewhere.

i’m pretty sure there’s a quote that goes “i don’t know all the answers, but i’m beginning to ask the right questions.” i think this film inspires that. i think it’s made me ask questions i’ve never really thought about before, and it’ll give me new questions with every viewing for at least a little while.

i’m not saying you should watch this film, but i am saying that if you’re feeling a little lost, this might give you a good idea of how to start being found.

The first person who ever told me they loved me, lied.

I feel like that happens to most people. Maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. I’ve always been too afraid to ask.

I’ve been too afraid to ask a lot of things lately, and by lately I mean my entire life.

‘Love having @#@@^ in class, wish she would participate more, though’, is what the teacher’s notes would always say.

Too afraid to ask what that word means, or how to work this problem, or what the %&^^ two percent milk means, or how did you two meet, or do you still love each other?

Am I aloud to write %&^^ in a blog post? I’m too afraid to ask.

I don’t look afraid. I make people afraid, though.

Or at least, that is what I’m told. Chances are, I’m more afraid of you than you are of me.

Like a spider.

Maybe that’s why I like spiders so much?

I mean, technically I have arachnophobia, but I’m not afraid of spiders.

I’m afraid of Ticks. And needles,

but only sometimes.

Only when they’re taking my blood.

Its not like I’m afraid of blood.I just don’t like it when something takes my blood.

Maybe its because I was killed by a vampire in a past life? That might explain why I think vampires are overrated.

But, I don’t believe in past lives.

Or anything really.

But that is  not my point.

At least, not right now.

My point is that the first person who ever told me they loved me, lied.

I told him I loved him too, which was also a lie.

But, that is not the point.

Because, whether I lied or not, I was not the first person to tell him ‘I love you’. I know because I heard others tell him they loved him and he told them he loved them too.

I never confronted him about it.

I wonder if he lied to them as well, or if I was just special?

Special in the worst way possible.

I don’t care whether he meant it with them or not. I’m long over wondering why I wasn’t good enough to be his only one.

To be honest, I never really cared that much in the first place.

To be honest, I barely even liked him.

But I never really got over how he called me boring.

Or how he called me ugly.

Or how he complained about me not talking enough, only to turn around and tell me he didn’t care about my ‘sob stories’ the moment I opened up.

I think about how he called me boring every time I think about saying ‘No’.

I think about how he called me ugly every time I put on makeup.

I think about how he called me a ‘sob story’ every time I speak.

Every now and then,

I think back to that one time he told me that I am going to die alone, broke, and homeless

and wonder if those words somehow cursed me?

I don’t believe in god, yet I believe every word he said.

Pretty crazy, right?

He didn’t love me.

I didn’t love him.

But that is not the point.

The point is that his words still effect my everyday life,

while my words were never given a second thought.

Its always seemed pretty wild to me that someone can effect someone else so much,

but the person who is doing the effecting will never be effected in return.

I often wonder if this is all the reason why I only care for those who don’t care for me back?

Everything they do effects me so much, yet everything I do hardly effects them at all.

I wonder if it started with him or if it runs back even earlier than that?

Maybe requited love killed me in a past life?

Who knows?

I’m too afraid to ask.

Tis’ The Season

It’s Christmas time. Pigeons kill pigeons
silent in the night, spilling righteousness
on church steps. A sacrifice, soft and bloody,
right beside sculpted Mother Mary’s
graphic placenta. Watch the blood soak
into the concrete, drizzling off like silky
smooth cranberry sauce.

But we’ve come next door for soy sauce,
entering the restaurant to watch gum
under table top chew spiders. Excuse me,
Aunt Martha, to the intimate mint green
bathroom walls of Chinese Vegan buffets
who know me delicately more so. Undressing
me. Licking my skin clean of clean, suckling
open-toed shoes, mold eating gold
right off painted toe. You cross
my mind here as the lipstick stained kiss
on the toilet seat. Look both ways,
don’t be hit by that nasty train
of thought. You never liked mine.

An old woman bursts in, broken
lock bedlam. She drools the piss
right out of her mouth at the sight
of such intimacy. Sinks can’t wash fake
octopus crumbs off fingertips, but they’ll
hold your hand all nice and well. Go back
to the table. Watch a spider blow
a pink gum bubble, bursting and ripe
with low-hanging legs. I eat spiders
who eat gum who eat spiders because that
was my last piece. The table top underside
is now clean of clean of clean.

If I were to count exactly how many Snapple drinks that I have drunk in my lifetime, I would probably wind up with a single digit number.  I have nothing against the beverages; I just haven’t had that many of them for whatever reason.  Regardless of my limited experience with them, one thing that always intrigued me about Snapple drinks is not the drink at all but part of its packaging.  Snapple drinks come in glass bottles similar to milk bottles that were once used to deliver milk to people’s doorsteps.  Thus, topping them are metal caps.  Under these metal caps are “Snapple Real Facts”, interesting little bits of trivia that aren’t much but are a lot more than most bottles are willing to do.  Some of these facts include, “6. Camels have three eyelids,” “8. a bee has five eyelids,” “30. Fish have eyelids,” and “21. peaches are members of the almond family.”  While all of these will grab a person’s attention momentarily, they might not interest someone enough to lead them to actually look a little bit further into the matter at hand and check the legitimacy of these so-called “facts”.  Unfortunately, I call them this because many of them, plainly and simply are completely nonfactual.  An example of a false “fact” is “20. Broccoli is the only vegetable that is also a flower.”  This is simply untrue and easily disproven given the tiniest bit of research.  One can easily find that artichokes, cauliflower, West Indian peas are all examples of vegetables that are also flowers.  Another fact that’s untrue is #23 which claims that San Francisco’s cable cars are the only mobile national monument, but this is untrue for a number of reasons.  First of all, it is not a national monument at all; it is a historical landmark.  These two designations are very much two different things.  Secondly, there are quite a number of historical landmarks that are, in fact, mobile.  On every front, this “fact” is simply not a fact at all.  These “facts” can’t even stay consistent with each other.  For example, one fact, #399, claimed that the U.S.’s first capital was New York (which is true) while another, #662 attributed the same claim to the city of Philadelphia (which is not true).  While these “facts” are only meant to be fun bits of trivia that a person can share with their friends, they should still have a responsibility to be factual.