Writer's Workbook #15

#15         How forgiving are you when a friend lets you down?

                Friends are supposed to have your back through thick and thin, right? So why is it that every time I need them, they aren’t there? When my dog died when I was six, I had no one to console me at school. When I got sick and had to stay home for a week in eighth grade, no one was there to bring me homework. When I get too stressed to function and my sanity starts to slip, I have no one to talk to in an attempt to relax.

                The funny thing is, I’ve had friends. I’ve had the same friends since I stepped foot into an elementary school. I guess I was a filler-there to take up space and fill out the group. None of my “friends” seemed to actually care about me, and it became even more evident as we grew up. When we were old enough everyone was getting into relationships and offering advice and setting up dates, whereas I was barely handed a tissue when I needed one during allergy season.

                Organizing my thoughts like this should be a wake-up call that makes me say, “Oh hey, I should drop those friends and find some new ones”. But it won’t. Because I’m the kind of person that clings to the routine, and my friends were one. Dropping them now and trying to find new ones would put somewhere cold and unfamiliar.  I had already established myself in a place cold and distant, but at it was familiar. Just not in a friendly sort of way.

                A lot of people ask me how important trust and support is in a friendship. I simply answer that I’ve never been able to find out. 

Funny How

Funny how love elicits a physical reaction.

My chest aches

My fingers twitch

My arms itch

My lungs don’t want to fill

In your absence.

Funny how a beautiful thing can make you cry.

Tears fall to the ground

Laughter erupts to the sky.

Joy and sadness mix

From the reunion.

Funny how we’re romanticized.

No one wants to be us-

split apart with nowhere to go.

No one wants our struggle-

alone in the world without comfort.

No one wants to fall in love

It is far too painful.

Funny how young we are.

We dream of adventure,

We dream of hope,

We dream of life together,

We dream of an escape.

We are far too young.

Funny how stubborn we are.

Never will we give up.

Never will we give in.

Never will we listen

When they say it won’t last.

Funny how much people hate love.

Funny how often they say

We’ll never make it.

Writer's Workbook #14

#14 Once upon a time…

There was a boy, sad and sick from loss. He was alone in the world. No family, no friends, no benevolent monarch to take him in as their own. The boy only had himself, and he was barely much at that. His body was withering away as starvation and illness ate away at him. He was too weak to even attempt to steal food.

There was almost a mother. A mother who lost a child before they were born. Her face was stony and lifeless as she lived with the pain of her lost child. She had family and friends to comfort her, but no bouncing baby to cry and whine for her with every instant. On the rare occasions she went out her heart twisted and ached whenever she saw children with their parents.

The fairytale only comes to life when, on one of these such rare occasions, the would-be mother came across the almost-gone boy. She saw him, sick and close to death, lying in the streets. She approached the boy, asking if he had a family she could take him to. With what energy the boy had left, he croaked out a single “No.” New strength of heart in her, the mother picked the boy up in her arms and took him to her home. She fed him small amounts at first so his body would not reject the nutrients, and dialed a hospital to get him better care.

Once upon a time, there were two souls, wandering lost in the world without the love they needed. These souls found family and care in each other, mother and son, to be with each other in these simple roles.

Writer's Workbook #13

#13 This church gave me a creepy feeling…

I know churches. I know cathedrals. I know that they have ornate altars and dazzling stained glass windows and huge crucifixes hanging from the ceiling. This church had that, but it was all wrong. The altar was metal instead of wooden. The stained glass portrayed images of  massacres and sacrifices, red glass scattered to show blood and the black glue distorting the faces of the people depicted. The worst was the crucifix. Normally those are saddening and horrible to look at as is, but this one was twisted. The cross was gnarled and the wood looked rotten. Nails stuck in the hands and feet of the Jesus upon it as usual, but this one had extra nails dotting his stomach. The red paint seemed to still ooze from the wounds, and there was a distinct smell of rotting meat. Jesus’s face, however, was positively grotesque. His features smiled manically, eyes rolling back in his head and a sloppy grin pasted on his thin face.

I sat in a pew, trying to figure out why the decorations so often used as decoration were so horrific.

Tick-Tock Annoying Clock

It was a child crying over candy

It was a dog yapping at a television screen

It was someone chewing too loudly.

The clock tick-tick-ticked

Sound filling the room.

It was maddening

Infuriating.

Counting down like a bomb

Warning of the hour to come.

Idly dragging its hands across its face

The clock continued to cry out

Its tick-tick-ticking a screech

The tock-tock-tocks a calmer breath.

The clock struck the hour

And it wailed in five short bursts.

The calm that followed was more

Incredibly incessant

Tick-tock Tick-tocks.

The seconds lapped the minutes,

The minutes made the hours,

The hours cried out

Making the clock an infant

That had woken from a nap.

Book's Beating Heart

Cracked, weathered papers,

Wrinkled like the skin of an old man

Worn corners and edges

Worlds and legends held tight in the pages.

Many voices call

From the faces trapped inside.

Love and fear and excitement

Easily trek alongside.

Warmth and safety are illusions

Brought forth by this book.

It holds a beckoning promise

But its empty hands outstretched.

The story whisks minds away

Wonderful, bright, curious

Willing to be absorbed into the words.

It takes hearts and souls alike

Melds minds together

Bends and warps reality

Defying all logic and time.

The letters stand with importance

Together forming words with strength,

Strength enough to defeat armies and repair societies.

Answers are sought

And some may be found

From this book of secrets

With a beating heart, alive with wisdom.

This book is not one, but many stories.

With the passion of romance

The thrill of adventure and horror

The intrigue of mystery

And the foreboding of knowledge.

The book is alive with wisdom

If only it is held correctly.

Writer's Workbook #12

#12 I’ve done something very stupid and embarrassing…

One thing that does not quite make sense is why people never explain to kids why they aren’t supposed to say certain words, and how to recognize said words. I always knew the stigma of swearing, but never what words constituted a Forbidden Vocabulary. My dad has one of the most colorful array of words I have ever heard, and young people are very impressionable. On many different occasions I have uttered the Cursed Words that were so dastardly to say, and had no idea the significance of them. Too often did my mom have to explain to me why I wasn’t supposed to say them.

A prominent moment in this time of accidental swearing was in fourth grade-when I was much too old to be saying curse words without realizing what they meant. I said “screw you” to my teacher, during a moment of joking, thinking I was adding to the humor of the moment. After everyone had been dismissed my teacher had to sit me down and explain what connotations that phrase held behind it. The horror that settled upon me was a blanket too itchy and hot, and had a large ugly stain added when I realized that I had taught twenty minds as easily influenced as my own that exact same phrase.

Luckily, I always managed to avoid saying the Mother of All Swears prematurely, despite how fond of it my dad was when he was frustrated. However, this was mostly due to the fact that my family had a special tradition of watching A Christmas Story every year on the very holiday the movie revolves around. If not for that innuendo-packed film, I would have almost definitely have learned the alternate to fudge.