Nightmare- Alone.

I had to stand on a platform. Everyone in my group had to. All you had to do was read the question and the crowd would answer. Why? Who knows. Not me.
After Darrah read hers, I stepped onto the platform, holding my shakey legs steady with my hand firmly on the wall beside it. I took the paper from Darrah, and she whispered me a 'good-luck.' I put my hand on the wall, the other hand holding the paper my eyes were darting across. Number 9. I began to read the question, but people started yelling at me. I kept trying to read it, but each time more people interrupted and they did it louder.
Overwhelmed, I sank to my knees, leaning my head against the wall so I wouldn't fall off the platform. My eyes darted to the paper again...my question wasn't there. Where was it? Where?! I had to read it. I had to. I started to panic. My heart was racing a hundred miles a minute and had no intentions of slowing. Someone threw something at me and I received a direct blow to my eye. I whimpered, one hand now clamping my pained eye and the other holding the paper shakily, still searching for the disapeared question.
Just read the question, Laura. The others began to say softly. C'mon, just read it.
Tears started leaking from my eyes, and the peoples' yells and curses were louder than ever. They threw things harder and faster, and it felt like hail raining on my huddled-up body. This went on for what seemed like forever, and I sat there crying, and still looking for that damn question.
After forever had ended, the people stopped and they began to disapear slowly. After the mob had vanished, Darrah and a few others came up to me. Why didn't you read it, Laura? You should have just read it..Why? Why? I said nothing. I threw the paper at them, still holding my hurting eye and crying. They saw my question was not on the paper, and looked around at each other and wondering what had happened.
Next thing I knew, Ashley came up to me and started bitching at me about not reading the question like I knew I was supposed to. I couldn't take it. I lashed out on her. You're such a bitch! Why are you always like this to me?! Leave me the fuck alone, bitch! And I punched her. After that, I ran.
I kept running until I couldn't anymore. I came to the courtyard of what appeared to be a large hotel. The building overshadowed the people that walked below it.
I ran inside to a small, metal phone booth similar to the ones seen in airports, and I sat in there. I took my cellphone, and called the first person I thought of. Alex, of course. I sat there crying, listening to the dial tone, anxious to hear his voice.
Then I heard it, except it was his voice on his answering machine. I cursed, hung up, and tried again.
Same thing.
I began to call other people I knew. No one answered. Crying harder, I ran outside. All the people had vanished, but I didn't seem to notice.
I kept calling.
Anyone.
Everyone.
No one would answer.
No one came for me.
No one answered for me.
I was alone.

The Man and The Sea

Oh mister sailor,
Man of the sea,
Why did you run
From the land of the free?
Did you have the North Star
To show you the way?
Did you rely on sheer instinct
Day after day?
Were the waters harsh
And unforgiving?
Or were they your passion,
And reason for living?
Oh mister sailor,
What were you thinking?
What were you wishing,
As your eyes stopped blinking?
Were you wishing that you
Hadn't gone running?
Were you wishing that you
Could have changed something?
Who thought of you,
As your body sunk farther,
As your bones came to rest
In Davy Jones' Locker?
What was your name?
What was your story?
Would you appreciate me,
And this telling your glory?
Oh mister sailor,
How did you come to be,
The tale of the man who
Became one with the sea?

Untitled

Don't know which way to turn
The labyrinth's halls keep changing
They mix it up
They switch around
Feel so lost
Yet to be found
Passed this spot before
Going in circles
Running as fast as possible
Simply returning to the same spot
Only in less time.
But keep going,
Maybe the right hall will appear
And lead out of this place.
Alas, the exit to one maze
Leads to the entrance of another.
So it goes on.

--

Stars hide your fires...
Forget hiding them,
Why don't you just put them out?
You don't shine during the darkest of nights.
You false symbolisms of hope.
Did the North Star really guide a sailor home,
Or maybe the sailor had luck on his side?
Don't reach to the stars,
Don't keep one for yourself,
It will die in your mortal embrace.
Super-novas and dwarves
They're not meant to be captured.
Like butterflies in a jar-
Fluttering to the rhythm of their heart-attacks.

I'm my own God.

Religion is something so very foreign to me. I have never been religious, and I honestly never want to be. For me, religion is a little far-fetched, and hey- it's one less thing I have to worry about. I don't have to worry about some higher-being judging my every move, telling me from ancient stories what is right and wrong, how to live, and what to do with my life. I don't want to live my life in fear of someone judging my every move from the skies above. That's my job. That's why I have a concious.

The basic story of life in a religious sense goes like this; a God created everything and everyone. It was his vision, his idea and his will to create all of the world around us. Well, believing this (for me personally), would also mean believing that this God is not the only creator in this world. That's right. Depending on how many are currently on the Earth, there are always billions of Gods on this very soil which we reside on. We all create our own thoughts, emotions, ideas. We all create our own lives, and live them for all their worth. We innovate, explicate, devastate, appreciate. We are what we make ourselves. We don't find ourselves, we create ourselves. You are who you say you are, and no one can tell you any different.

Mary Oliver

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

'You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.'

I read this poem in my English class, and through the tangle of emotions and thoughts I was wrapped up in this whole week, this poem found a place in my mind and stuck there. I found myself reading and reciting the lines over in my head when I found myself upset or unconfident. When I was feeling down, I would simply think of the first part of this poem; 'You do not have to be good.' I make mistakes, and I don't have to repent to any higher-power that I'm not even sure I believe in. I do not have to grovel for forgiveness; I'll be forgiven if someone wants to forgive me. If not, then I'll simply move on. I'm just human. Through all my despair and self-doubt, while I'm standing still with my head towards the ground that gravity has pinned me to, the world keeps moving. It goes on without me. I don't want it to go on without me, I'm not going to miss the train or the boat to a place I want to go- I'm going to go there, and not stop until I do, except maybe to admire my surroundings and smell the roses, if you will. My life will fall into place, I will fing and/or create who I am and who I want to be in time, and I will find my place in the world and in the Great Chain of Being.


Trilliums by Mary Oliver

'Every spring
among
the ambiguities
of childhood

the hillsides grew white
with the wild trilliums.
I believed in the world.
Oh, I wanted

to be easy
in the peopled kingdoms,
to take my place there,
but there was none

that I could find
shaped like me.
So I entered
throughh the tender buds,

I crossed the cold creek,
my backbone
and my thin white shoulders
unfolding and stretching.

From the time of snow-melt,
when the creek roared
and the mud slid
and the seeds cracked,

I listened to the earth-talk.
the root-wrangle,
the arguments of energy,
the dreams lying

just under the surface,
the rising,
becoming
at the last moment

flaring and luminous -
the patient parable
of every spring and hillside
year after difficult year.'

I understood the narration of this poem more than a good deal of the poetry I've ever read, especially since I feel I can relate to it. The tone of the poem is calm and traquil...but there's something behind that tone. Some sort of disturbance of the peace. A certain tone of heart-felt discouragement that this narrator has felt. A heartbreak, a betrayal, a put-down...something happened and hurt this person. It's funny because not many people in my class understood that until I voiced this, and explained my evidence for my belief for it. Maybe it's just because I've felt the same way lately. This week I was mildly calm, but I also had that feeling of heart-felt dispointment in the world I reside in. 'I believed in the world,' this line is so powerful, despite it's size. The author USED to believe in the world. Something hurt him; effected him to not be as close to the world as he used to, and I think that happened to me this week, ot a certain extent of course. There is so much more I can go into about this poem, but I wouldn't want to ruin it for anyone. :)

Hell

It was the worst of times. The worst of times indeed, and they weren’t getting any better. Cities were no longer cities, but rather a home to those who had brought this agony upon the world. There was no sun in these cities- canopies of smog floated amongst the tallest of buildings, shielding the wasteland from the outside world. The people that inhabited this city had no purpose in their everyday lives- simply to continue to keep the city as dull and hopeless as possible. These people couldn’t even really be considered people, since they had no emotions, no feelings. They were more like the undead, simply wandering upon the earth, trying to find a way to move on to hell. But wait…this place…this place was hell. What else could it possibly be? Satan must have relocated to the Earth, perhaps he found the environment better: there were no trees left, there were no animals, there was no fresh air, and there were no problems with good feelings or happiness. It was Satan’s paradise. These people did not have voices; what did they need them for? People had devolved into cowards. Into worms. They did not dare speak out, and I’m quite sure the word ‘speak’ had been removed from the dictionary…if there was a dictionary left. Perhaps Satan had ordered all literature burned- a private little fire for him. It would be a typical tyrant’s move, the burning of literature. The destroying of words that had kept humans alive for centuries, the words that had invoked thought and wonder of new worlds and planets, the words which caused riots and tears, and caused rejoicing in the streets. Yes. A great idea for a tyrant to burn these books. Erase the past- no one needed them in Satan’s new world, anyways.

Life Cycle

Inhale, exhale. She told herself, Just inhale and exhale. It didn’t work. She tried to scream, but she didn’t make a sound. The silence foamed from her lips and surrounded her. Engulfed her. The light left her eyes slowly, and it entered the stars. The stars received the light graciously, thanking the girl for her gift as she lay still. They smiled, and sparkled until night turned to dawn. When the dawn burned away the night-time sky, the stars suffocated in the light. They fell, plunging into the ocean. Their light faded away, and was vaporized into the air. The stars became creatures which clung for dear life to rocks and the ocean floor. Their light supplied the sun, who obtained the light selfishly. The sun was content with the light it had gained. Below the sun was a girl, setting up to bask in the sun’s rays. The sun beat down upon her- it loathed the girl, and beat down harder. The heat of its rays wrapped around her, light transferring into her body and soul. And then, she began to breathe faster. Her heartbeat pumped harder, trying to supply her body with enough oxygen to keep her soul alive. But it wasn’t enough. Inhale, exhale. She told herself, Just inhale and exhale.