Prompt: Basically describe someone through some object or habit of theirs, but we all know I don't actually follow prompts.

The Piano

The often tells me
the notes that sound from the
old baby grand in the hall
are more missteps and accidentals
than a melody
but when he sits at the bench,
the music that sounds is
more than enough to impress me.

As Peter would say, everything you do is an autobiography. Everything you draw or write or paint is a self-portrait. You can only draw your face; you can only show your hand.

As such, I only write about myself. All of my characters have different faces or names, but they're really all me, at least in part. Which explains this next bit of prose.

Prompt: The piece of mind you would like to give that old so-and-so.
For: Creative writing assignment

( ...I suggest you don’t ever dial this number again, or I will hunt you down, break your phone, then break your neck. Leave me alone. )

I want to get in the habit of posting here again. Mostly I want to get in the habit of writing again. Here is a poem I wrote this summer that I am quite fond of:

Electricity

Your fingers on my skin still send
a shock of white-hot electricity into my veins,
to my heart,
making it flutter
at the sight, the touch, the taste of you.
My heart speeds up; I gasp for the
breath you stole right from my lungs.
And the world moves in slow motion.
Through the fevered, dizzy haze,
I can only see you,
see the electricity arcing from your hand to my body.
In the daily mediocrity of held hands,
evenings in on the couch,
your back pressed against mine as the world
goes on for a little while without us,
of quick pecks on our way out the door,
into the world we’re supposed to be prepared for,
I still feel the heat, the spark,
the voltage that stops my heart.
Bodily functions interrupted with the
smallest brush
of your fingers against my cheek,
your lips against my lips,
your hand across my hips.
Time makes us older
and dulls electricity to a
static shock,
like clothes without fabric softener.
But us,
Oh,
you touch me and my heart stops,
I can’t catch my breath,
and all conscious thought halts.
And through the blur of electric shock,
all I can see
is you.

Requirements: None
Notes: Written a while ago. I like the rhythm.

Statement of Intent

At the start of it all,
I had intended to use you,
abuse you,
manipulate your heart and make it mine.
It was such a pretty thing,
pulsing with the weight of your blood,
and I had to have it.
I knocked away you guard until you
unlocked your ribcage and let me in.
I reached out a hand and stole it,
and since I was already there,
I stole your breath away as well.
In my hand, your whole heart pulsed,
keeping you alive.

At the start of it all,
I had intended to use you,
abuse you,
replace my broken heart with yours.
I just wanted to
repair my breathless lungs with
the air I took from yours,
to make myself whole again.
I wanted to break you, crush you
Make you feel the pain of my suffering.
Rip you apart with bare hands,
and leave you to take care of the shards.
Beat you, break you,
all to build myself up again.

At the start of it all,
I had intended to use you,
abuse you,
break your pretty heart and kill you.
But as I stand here,
with the tissue bleeding through my fingers,
all I can do
is place it back in your hollow chest
step back
let you take up the needle and thread
and repair my broken heart.

This is based on a letter I saw in LetterGraveyard, which is located here. I dunno, it just sort of struck me. I like this. It's written very much like the way I write poetry, which reminds me of Sylvia Plath a little bit.

This one is very different in that it has a completely different tone and is... less a method of organizing my thoughts. I like this one. It's the earliest of the ones posted thus far.

 

The intent was to write what came immediately before the first conversation. None of these are in order anymore. Most of them go backwards, actually... But I love writing them. It's a nice mix between poetry and prose, and they're short enough to keep my attention. I am sappy and girlish, so I want to put them together (probably better in a script than a novel since I'm impatient and not that great at description), probably not with a happy ending. They're just... I dunno. I  like 'em.

I love writing these. It helps me organize my head. I think the plot of these would make a great novel, or at least a good one. This one would work better with some blocking in it, which I will eventually write. The time gap, for example, needs explaining. But right now, it's just dialog, and that's what I need it to be.

( 'Ian, I'm moving to Seattle. I'm leaving.' )

It is often easier to fictionalize things I think because they are not about me to the casual obsever. One of these days, I will sting these conversations and the parts in between in some semblace of a novel. It will probably not have a happy ending.

 

Requirements: Prompt was Home is Where the Heart Is.
Notes: I dislike my family. I do, however, love extended metaphor. : )

Air Mail

I keep my home in a padlocked box,
six sides of reinforced steel,
rows of bolts and rivets to hold it together.
Because, Hulk-like and green,
it grows, bulging muscles that make the walls buckle,
pops the rivets like bullets
(and creates collateral damage)
and escapes,
destroying the city that is my life.
It crushes a self esteem subway
like a ten-cent Hot Wheels car.
Buildings collapse. raising a cloud of dust
that obscures my vision
and brings me to my knees.
Mammoth and monstrous,
it crushes me like the bug I am.

If home is where the heart is,
I will gladly claw at my own thin skin
and rip away the packaged layer
that holds me all together,
holds it all inside.
I will grasp that myogenic tissue,
tear out the still (barely) beating thing,
and drop it in a cardboard box,
(double lined with tape
so my blood doesn’t stain the
pristine, white envelopes beside it).
I will purchase the postage,
just right for the weight of my
dirty, damaged part of self,
seal it up,
and scrawl an address for
there or there or there,
or hell, anywhere but here.
Ship it off.
(I’d even pay for first class express air mail,
all the bells and whistles to get it
just as far away from me as I can.)

If home is where the heart is,
Take my heart and run.

Requirements: Prompt was Rage Against the Machine
Notes: It's a little adolescent, but I love extended metaphor. Also, yes, the reference to the Matrix was intentional.

System Overload

Metal and mean, she’s just a machine.
Peering from her chrome face aren’t eyes
but lights,
a 32-bit color reflection in one dimension,
smooth as glass to conceal the circuit board within.
Cold and clean, her steel skin gleams,
polished and painted until she shines.
And the programming that lets her
appear to live
is simple, calculated,
and functional.
The firewalls protect her from viruses
that try to hack her silicon heart,
to change the program
so her computerized life rejects the matrix
and forces her to wake up and come alive.
But one sly hacker reroutes the wall,
travels down a different connection
to reach her central processor.
He gives her a new image and a new network,
a friendly façade for a virus of emotion,
a bug that makes her feel.
Her fans speed up but she can’t cool down.
The system overloads,
makes her claw at her own metal skin,
tear it off in sheets so the bolts pop.
She reaches a cold hand into her cold chest,
takes a fist full of colorful wires
and pulls,
gutting herself to escape the
program she used to call alive.
And sparks fly as she self-destructs,
leaving the electronic carnage to rust.
The lights in her glass eyes dim,
and she falls to the ground.
The wreckage of her destruction
surrounds her, engulfs her,
saves her.
And a new program reboots,
the skin beneath the metal, free.
Instead of leaking oil, she drips blood.
Her eyes blink open and finally,
she screams.
Because the pain she feels has never been so real.

Metal and mean, she’s just a machine.
Cold and clean, she starts again.
Because he hacked into her metal heart
and made her rage against her programming.

Requirements: One of a list of potential titles (we'll consider the one I used 'I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar', even though I renamed) and same-line rhyming, which I scrapped.
Notes: I AM NOT PREGNANT. Nor have I ever been. Also, I came up with the idea for this one by thinking of things I'm passionate about (to avoid the "I-hate-you-you-lying-cheat" stuff that I have every right to write about). Things that crossed my mind included Vietnam and abortion. I chose the latter. I adore this poem.

Birmingham

They say it is murder.
This scientific, objective, thoughtless mass
has fingernails and eyes and a heart.
It has fingernails.
They say it is just like me,
the same blood flowing through our same veins,
the same gentle thump THUMP
the same proteins at the ends of our similar hands
the same AGACCGATTA
They tell me to look,
see the grainy outline of its too-big head,
its ten tiny toes,
see the thump THUMP thump THUMP.
See the chest rise and fall,
just as mine does.
They say it is murder.
They say it is life.
They say she is mine.

I say I am not ready yet!
Just barely out the door of childhood myself,
I'm still grasping onto the doorknob,
fighting my way back into the womb
where I am warm and safe and protected.
I cannot care for myself,
remember to breathe and to eat,
to crawl out of bed and face the day.
Look at our heart,
beating in a steady rhythm of one.
thump THUMP thump THUMP

You are new and clean and pure,
but I am not.
And every moment your heart beats,
mine is breaking.
The blood that runs through your veins
is just like mine.
But every moment you speed up,
I slow down
until I am a hollow shadow,
broken and beaten and stilted by
a loss of opportunity,
a road block.
So please forgive me
if I have to let you go this time.
Every moment you continue to live,
I die just a little bit more.
I have never loved as I do now,
caught up in your tiny closed eyes,
the perfect rhythm of your body.
Please forgive me if I have to
give you away, to still the life I’ve given.
Next time,
I promise I’ll mean it,
and you’ll have all the love I can give.
But this time,
please forgive me.

I have fingernails too.

Requirements: Prompt was this quote from Buffy on all_unwritten:

You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight and you'll shag and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children, it's blood. Blood screaming inside you to work its will.
~Spike

Notes: None

Rush of Blood

I'd love to hate you,
to be repulsed at the thought of you,
to run away at the sight of you
to hide,
to avoid you
and never have to share another word.
to keep my secrets to myself.
and have a reason to spit acid heresy
behind your back
to not give a damn
if you exist or not
if you live or not
if you’re here or not.
Oh, I'd love to hate you.

But you grabbed onto a bit of my soul,
dug your fingers in deep
and refused to let go.
Your words wrapped around my ear and stole me
you held my heart in your heart
and they beat as one,
intertwined.

I'd love to push you out
and away from me.
I'd love to separate you from myself,
shove you to the ground,
kick you while you’re down.
reach into the spaces between your ribs,
wrench out your heart
and squeeze, so the blood runs down my elbow
Leave holes from my fingernails
I'd love to crush you, baby.

And it wouldn't even be that hard
cause when anger lights me on fire,
when my pulse quickens,
my breathing rapid
my face flushed, pupils wide
when the world moves in slow motion,
slows down when you're around
when I can't catch my breath

well,
hating you feels a lot like

love

Requirements: Transgender Tuesday! Write with a voice that is distinctly your opposite sex (so a male for me).
Notes: This will eventually be awesome when I get around to rewriting it. It's still a little awesome. There will eventually be more religious imagery. I am so going to hell.

Revelations 22:13

I am MAN.
Cower before me, foolish mortals,
And quiver and quake in my footsteps.
I am MAN
And you,
On your knees, bow before me,
Tremble in my presence.
For there’s a new church now—
Cross yourself, fold your hands,
And pray to the new god most high,
The religion of me.
I command you,
My supplicants
Now listen, while I tell you how it goes.
When I walk,
The sun is afraid to outshine me.
When I talk,
The birds and the wind still.
When I glance across the room,
Pick you out
And give you that look,
Girl, you’d better be ready to take down
Every other devotee in the room
(the heat of their jealousy might just
Char you until well-done)
I am MAN
And so, I am everything
The alpha and the omega,
The beginning and the end.
Without me, baby,
You are nothing but a helpless child,
Lost and searching,
Just waiting for me to pick you up and dust you off
And take care of you.
Baby, without me, you couldn’t make it.
You need this life.
You need me.
So come back to church, sweetie.
Take your seat in the confessional,
And pour your heart out from behind the screen,
With your knees on the bench.
Cross your heart
And pray to me
That I’ll forgive your sins.
You gotta feel sorry, baby
To feel forgiven
That is,
If I don’t smite you instead.

Requirements: None.
Notes: Sort of inspired by an all_unwritten prompt "my greatest fear" but more by life and my love of extended metaphor. Also, this is one of the few that has a good title.


Cirque du Soleil

Come one, come all to the big top,
The three-ring circus, the event of the year
Get your tickets, ladies and gentlemen, and grab your seats
Cause you won’t want to miss this spectacle.
Watch the lions and tigers and bears,
watch the animal trainer crack the whip,
scare them in submission
and turn them into kitty cats and teddy bears.
Watch the little clown car,
Beep beep, and they all climb out,
Big red noses and gaudy make up,
Smile for them—all they want is a smile.
Gorge yourself on popcorn and cotton candy and peanuts
Stuff yourself with artificial sugar
Then watch the ringmaster take the center ring.
He says, “Come one, come all,
“Feast your eyes on this—
“The brave, the courageous, the daring
“Watch as she walks the tightrope!”
Swing your eyes up,
Up to the top of the tent
Where the red and white swirl together
And you can just make her out,
The little girl in a sparkly leotard,
One foot on the rope,
The other stretched behind her
The crowd gasps as she turns,
Pivots on the wire high above their heads
She bends
And jumps,
Leaps,
Lands
Right back on the rope
Then she takes a step
And another
And another
And a leap,
Higher,
And flips
And lands..
Then she turns,
Leans,
An arabesque
Folds in half,
Reaches for the ground and grabs the rope instead,
Leans
And stands on her hands,
Legs taunt and tight in the air,
Perfectly
Balanced.
Then she bends her arms, pushes herself up
Flips
And lands
Back on the rope.
The audience gasps, as if she might just
Fall.
Every little slip,
Trip
Death-defying motion
They gasp
As if it might save her.
As if they could help her
By simply releasing a held breath.

Come one, come all,
Watch as the girl flouts gravity,
Resists physics.
Watch as she performs for the world,
Balanced on the wire,
Every movement controlled and choreographed,
Designed to remain in the air.
Better hope she doesn’t fall
Because there’s no net to catch her.

Requirements: Borrowed the football metaphors from the meeting before last.
Notes: ...yeah. I don't know how I feel about this one. *shrug*


Oh, I know it's fourth quarter, fourth down
and you're reeled back, ready to throw
but honey, if you want to score a touchdown on
this endzone, well,
you're gonna have to work on your passing.
Cause I've got the whole defensive line,
lined up and ready to tackle.
So what's it gonna it, hot shot?
I thought you were the big tough quarterback,
but we've reaching the two-minute warning,
and you're still counting.
Pick a play, baby, and let's go.

OH,
and it's an interception.
Offense is down for the count,
nursing his battle scars and
picking dirt and grass out of the wounds.
Number 27 is the star now, honey
cause you lost her shot at the goal,
the touchdown,
the big time NFL, baby
cause you waited too long to make your move,
and the other team scored the points.

Requirements: None
Notes: A bit of prose I whipped out from a mixture of intense thought, wishful thinking, previous writing, real life, music, and the desire to write. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, then remove from stove and serve while hot.


( 'I’m actually only in town for a few days,' he said. 'I’m on a story. I leave Thursday, unless I find another source, which is unlikely.' )

Requirements: None
Notes: Inspired by a note on LetterGraveyard, using an Eve/apple metaphor, signed "An unwilling Eve". I do adore extended metaphor, and this does fit perfectly with a situation in my life... Whoo metaphors. I think I like this poem.


It had hovered there on the branch,
A red globe, taunting me and calling me.
“Just one bite,” it pleaded. “Just a taste.”
And perhaps I would be
Satiated with that small bit of fruit,
The answer to all life’s questions,
The answer to the question of you.
But it was forbidden, so I turned away.

It swayed in the breeze,
Attached so delicately to the branch,
As if it might fall at any moment and become
Bruised and rotten and bad,
And even if I changed my mind and
Partaken of that sweet, illicit fruit,
It would have been too late.
“Just one bite,” it called, “And you’ll have the answer.”
It was forbidden, so I turned away
But I cast it a longing look over my shoulder.

It shone in the sunlight,
Giving off a gleam to envy the clearest day.
Its whisper curled around my ear and kissed my cheek,
“Just one taste.”

It was forbidden.
But finally, I could take no more taunting,
No more temptation!
I wrapped my lips around it and took a bite
And as the juices ran down my chin,
Knowledge seeped into my skin
And then I knew, I knew.

And the clouds opened and gave birth to rain,
Thunder, lightning,
An angry storm from an angry god.
“So you wanted to know?”
Now you know. What has it gained you?”
And I looked down at my nakedness,
The plainness and simplicity of my existence,
And I knew.
And with the knowledge and the juice still
Sticky on my skin,
I left the Eden I once knew,
Happy in my ignorance.

And now my skin is rubbed raw from the work,
Dyed a dull grey from the dirt
My muscles ache from the strain,
My hair, limp, fingernails ragged
Hands rough and callused.
My body is weak,
Broken under the burden of knowing.

What I would give for Eden once again
The paradise of ignorance,
The joy in unawareness.
Perfection of life in not knowing what else there could be.
I never wanted to know.
I just couldn’t fight the devil’s breath upon my ear.

Requirements: None
Notes: Written quite awhile ago, revamped.

Silence is the new invisibility.
We’re making a culture of cacophony
So add your own noise to the pollution
And feel like you’re a part of this.
“We just want to be heard!”
Pretend anyone can hear you in the din.
Pretend your ears can let anything else in.
We destroyed what we saw, so we had to move on,
Assault that invisible spectrum—
Destroy the natural music.

Silence is the new invisibility.
Keep your mouth closed,
And you no longer exist.
Keep those notes to yourself,
And you haven’t got a chance.
Without your own signature sound,
You are no one, nothing, nowhere.
We used to say “You slow down, you die.”
Now we saw, “You quiet down, you fade away.”

Silence is the new invisibility.
So clink your fork to your glass
And raise a toast to the new god most high—
Give it up for our new idol,
The best new way to abuse.
We’re making a culture of cacophony,
So add your own clatter to the clamor.

Silence is the new invisibility.
Would you rather destroy or disappear?