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longerthanwedoRemember how I said I would post stuff I was writing in creative writing this year? Well that didn't happen, and turns out half the stuff I did for that class I did really fast and never revised, so it's kind of bad. But here's a little writing dump of the stuff I did like. Now I can write the post-Mystery Spot thing I've been wanting to do since the winter, ahahahaaaaa yeah.
We End Up
Turns out this is getting published in a book of ~student poetry, it won a contest or something, but they really don't have their shit together, because I got a notification for someone named Rod that his poem was being published, and then I got a notification from me, and turns out Rod got a notification for someone named Shannon, and someone named Seth got a notification for me. So. Prompt was yes/no; guess who it's secretly about?
1.
“Yes,” says the first boy
with his first steady breath,
a breath that tastes like
gasoline
and highway dust.
His lungs expand,
inhale undefined air
while yellow lines blur.
His voice is the rough gravel
of the road.
2.
The other boy says, “no”
with every word
and turns his head away
from the dehydrated sky.
He doesn’t hear the radio,
only the crunch,
glass shattering, the flying
diamonds of the
collision
they’re speeding towards.
Apollo’s Hold
Assignment was to take a mythical figure and write about them/from their perspective. Any guesses as to why Apollo was my first choice lolll.
They say the string of a bow
in my fingers makes a sweeter sound
than the string of a harp.
They say I am harmony
as they kneel, but I wonder
if my sweet sounds would ring
in their ears if I turned
my arrow to the sky,
tipped with the death they bought
to bring blood to their enemies,
and let it fall in their midst.
If fire by my hand
would make screams as pure
and sweet as my music.
They would fall at my feet,
in reverence or
because they could no longer stand,
and I would rise up and watch
as they broke as a whole,
cursing the day they made me
immune to this weakness.
When You Follow from Behind
I don't actually remember what the assignment was, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do it.
She is standing in a shadow. The woman she can’t touch is sitting on the bed she just made, turned away from the window. Sarah doesn’t know why, but her mother makes that bed again and again, red chipped fingernails smoothing the sheets, almost angry, hands shaking. She looked different when she was alive.
-
When she woke up, her family was dead. She was spinning, flying, and then she stopped and her vision went black, and when she woke up they were dead. Their eyes were closed. There was blood on their skin. Her mother and father sat, heads inclined towards each other with glass in their hair. The seatbelt was a violent black gash across her little brother’s neck. She wanted to scream but she couldn’t, and soon the sirens were screaming for her, and two careful fingers were checking her pulse, and endless pairs of white gloved hands were reaching in, reaching over and past her, and taking her family away.
-
She is standing in a shadow, now, in the house that she was born in, and her family is here but she can’t touch them. She tried, when she got here, but it’s like the stories say: you can’t touch a ghost. They slip right through her fingers.
-
The strange thing was that the police removed the corpses first. Sarah woke up gasping for breath, numb, ringing of sirens in her ears, and they left her there, trapped and upside down. They dragged the bodies of her parents from the wreckage, lifted them gingerly onto stretchers, and then her brother’s limp, skinny shape. But she was stuck and they weren’t coming for her. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she was on a rolling surface and something dark obscured her vision.
When she woke up, her family was dead and she was standing in the shadow of her childhood home. The door was unlocked and the car was gone and she didn’t remember how she got there, but she went inside. The house was cold. Her parents stood in the empty kitchen like statues, their arms hollow cylinders, wrapped around each other. Their shoulders shook.
-
She is standing in the doorway of that kitchen now, and her brother sits at the table with his headphones in, but they’re not connected to anything and he doesn’t look up unless his mother touches his folded hands or his father brushes his shoulder. The shades on the windows are drawn. This is not how she remembers him. When he speaks, he sounds like an imitation of himself.
Watching her family is like watching a shadow without a source. Eventually her father picks himself up, ties his tie, intense and resolute, as if he were tying a noose. He is insubstantial. He leaves the house with a briefcase in his hand, the way he used to, as if he was going to work, as if he could. His face holds no expression.
They all leave eventually. Her brother begins to wake up early in the morning, grumbles his imitation complaints in a voice with no bite, and slings a backpack over his shoulder before he goes. Her father leaves and comes back, the dark circles under his eyes growing every day. His shoulders are hunched, his chest deflated.
Her mother’s eyes are still downcast and when the others leave she remains, sitting on Sarah’s bed and smoothing those hollow fingers over the sheets.
-
When Sarah woke up, her family was dead. When she woke up, she wondered why she wasn’t.
-
She is standing in a shadow. The woman she can’t touch is dressed in black, her frame is covered in it, and she lets a piece of paper fall from her clenched hands. Sarah watches her mother leave, finally, and the house is empty as she reads the paper that her mother’s ghost dropped. Memorial Service, it says at the top, and a date and a time and a place, and at the bottom in crisp, curling letters, Sarah’s name, and a snapshot of her face taken a week before the crash.
She looked different when she was alive.
Untitled
Narrative song, first try at ever writing a song so.
I once met a man: he was a broken son
with blackened hands and a smoking gun.
He told me stories that you wouldn’t believe,
of the people he’s known, the things he’s seen.
He said, “There’s so many things that are in my mind,
but what happens when I wake up blind?
When I can’t see the shadows with my bright red eyes?”
Well I got in his car and we drove for a while;
I saw the same old things with the same old smile.
I looked at him and said, “What do you see?”
He said, “The birds and the ghosts are looking at me.
I have the gun so they fall behind,
but what happens when I wake up blind?
When I can’t see the shadows with my bright red eyes?”
Then he let me off
on the side of the road,
and the sky was soft,
and I felt the cold.
And I saw a shape
underneath a tree
of a man whose face
was turned to me.
But he disappeared
when I blinked my eye.
And then I felt as if I woke up blind,
and I couldn’t see the shadows with my bright red eyes.
What happens when I wake up blind?
When I can’t see the shadows with my bright red eyes?
Untitled
Assigned love song, lol idk I stole the chorus line from Eschara because I had no other ideas.
Our hands play out our history,
warm and red as hearts,
and they twist and tangle roughly;
snaking skin and scars.
And our blood has been our definition;
red wine, stealing sleep.
I’ll drag you to the tallest building,
and hold you when you leap.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and all that ash is ours.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and we watch them burning out.
Your eyes are sparking on my skin,
blistering and bright.
I see you smile as I’m burning;
your flame, archaic art.
And oh, the ground is crackling,
crumbling beneath our feet.
Under the weight, your back is breaking,
while I help carry that heat.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and all that ash is ours.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and we watch them burning out.
I am your keeper; you are mine.
Destruction: we keep her,
her flames are old as time.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and all that ash is ours.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and we watch them burning out.
We End Up
Turns out this is getting published in a book of ~student poetry, it won a contest or something, but they really don't have their shit together, because I got a notification for someone named Rod that his poem was being published, and then I got a notification from me, and turns out Rod got a notification for someone named Shannon, and someone named Seth got a notification for me. So. Prompt was yes/no; guess who it's secretly about?
1.
“Yes,” says the first boy
with his first steady breath,
a breath that tastes like
gasoline
and highway dust.
His lungs expand,
inhale undefined air
while yellow lines blur.
His voice is the rough gravel
of the road.
2.
The other boy says, “no”
with every word
and turns his head away
from the dehydrated sky.
He doesn’t hear the radio,
only the crunch,
glass shattering, the flying
diamonds of the
collision
they’re speeding towards.
Apollo’s Hold
Assignment was to take a mythical figure and write about them/from their perspective. Any guesses as to why Apollo was my first choice lolll.
They say the string of a bow
in my fingers makes a sweeter sound
than the string of a harp.
They say I am harmony
as they kneel, but I wonder
if my sweet sounds would ring
in their ears if I turned
my arrow to the sky,
tipped with the death they bought
to bring blood to their enemies,
and let it fall in their midst.
If fire by my hand
would make screams as pure
and sweet as my music.
They would fall at my feet,
in reverence or
because they could no longer stand,
and I would rise up and watch
as they broke as a whole,
cursing the day they made me
immune to this weakness.
When You Follow from Behind
I don't actually remember what the assignment was, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do it.
She is standing in a shadow. The woman she can’t touch is sitting on the bed she just made, turned away from the window. Sarah doesn’t know why, but her mother makes that bed again and again, red chipped fingernails smoothing the sheets, almost angry, hands shaking. She looked different when she was alive.
-
When she woke up, her family was dead. She was spinning, flying, and then she stopped and her vision went black, and when she woke up they were dead. Their eyes were closed. There was blood on their skin. Her mother and father sat, heads inclined towards each other with glass in their hair. The seatbelt was a violent black gash across her little brother’s neck. She wanted to scream but she couldn’t, and soon the sirens were screaming for her, and two careful fingers were checking her pulse, and endless pairs of white gloved hands were reaching in, reaching over and past her, and taking her family away.
-
She is standing in a shadow, now, in the house that she was born in, and her family is here but she can’t touch them. She tried, when she got here, but it’s like the stories say: you can’t touch a ghost. They slip right through her fingers.
-
The strange thing was that the police removed the corpses first. Sarah woke up gasping for breath, numb, ringing of sirens in her ears, and they left her there, trapped and upside down. They dragged the bodies of her parents from the wreckage, lifted them gingerly onto stretchers, and then her brother’s limp, skinny shape. But she was stuck and they weren’t coming for her. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she was on a rolling surface and something dark obscured her vision.
When she woke up, her family was dead and she was standing in the shadow of her childhood home. The door was unlocked and the car was gone and she didn’t remember how she got there, but she went inside. The house was cold. Her parents stood in the empty kitchen like statues, their arms hollow cylinders, wrapped around each other. Their shoulders shook.
-
She is standing in the doorway of that kitchen now, and her brother sits at the table with his headphones in, but they’re not connected to anything and he doesn’t look up unless his mother touches his folded hands or his father brushes his shoulder. The shades on the windows are drawn. This is not how she remembers him. When he speaks, he sounds like an imitation of himself.
Watching her family is like watching a shadow without a source. Eventually her father picks himself up, ties his tie, intense and resolute, as if he were tying a noose. He is insubstantial. He leaves the house with a briefcase in his hand, the way he used to, as if he was going to work, as if he could. His face holds no expression.
They all leave eventually. Her brother begins to wake up early in the morning, grumbles his imitation complaints in a voice with no bite, and slings a backpack over his shoulder before he goes. Her father leaves and comes back, the dark circles under his eyes growing every day. His shoulders are hunched, his chest deflated.
Her mother’s eyes are still downcast and when the others leave she remains, sitting on Sarah’s bed and smoothing those hollow fingers over the sheets.
-
When Sarah woke up, her family was dead. When she woke up, she wondered why she wasn’t.
-
She is standing in a shadow. The woman she can’t touch is dressed in black, her frame is covered in it, and she lets a piece of paper fall from her clenched hands. Sarah watches her mother leave, finally, and the house is empty as she reads the paper that her mother’s ghost dropped. Memorial Service, it says at the top, and a date and a time and a place, and at the bottom in crisp, curling letters, Sarah’s name, and a snapshot of her face taken a week before the crash.
She looked different when she was alive.
Untitled
Narrative song, first try at ever writing a song so.
I once met a man: he was a broken son
with blackened hands and a smoking gun.
He told me stories that you wouldn’t believe,
of the people he’s known, the things he’s seen.
He said, “There’s so many things that are in my mind,
but what happens when I wake up blind?
When I can’t see the shadows with my bright red eyes?”
Well I got in his car and we drove for a while;
I saw the same old things with the same old smile.
I looked at him and said, “What do you see?”
He said, “The birds and the ghosts are looking at me.
I have the gun so they fall behind,
but what happens when I wake up blind?
When I can’t see the shadows with my bright red eyes?”
Then he let me off
on the side of the road,
and the sky was soft,
and I felt the cold.
And I saw a shape
underneath a tree
of a man whose face
was turned to me.
But he disappeared
when I blinked my eye.
And then I felt as if I woke up blind,
and I couldn’t see the shadows with my bright red eyes.
What happens when I wake up blind?
When I can’t see the shadows with my bright red eyes?
Untitled
Assigned love song, lol idk I stole the chorus line from Eschara because I had no other ideas.
Our hands play out our history,
warm and red as hearts,
and they twist and tangle roughly;
snaking skin and scars.
And our blood has been our definition;
red wine, stealing sleep.
I’ll drag you to the tallest building,
and hold you when you leap.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and all that ash is ours.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and we watch them burning out.
Your eyes are sparking on my skin,
blistering and bright.
I see you smile as I’m burning;
your flame, archaic art.
And oh, the ground is crackling,
crumbling beneath our feet.
Under the weight, your back is breaking,
while I help carry that heat.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and all that ash is ours.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and we watch them burning out.
I am your keeper; you are mine.
Destruction: we keep her,
her flames are old as time.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and all that ash is ours.
I’m here with you when the old fires start,
and we watch them burning out.
