Haikus are not really my thing. The challenge of conveying so much in only 17 syllables is nearly impossible, but I thought I’d try to step out of my comfort zone. Hope you like it!
The gush of tart juice
Awakens dormant taste buds
A green apple bite
Every artist I’ve ever read – or heard – about has always been eccentric in some way or another. Some were introverts, some burdened with diseases, others broken hearts. They were all tortured or abnormal. But it all was ok, because they were artists. Being bizarre and peculiar was expected of them. I thought it might be nice to be an artist. That way, whenever someone inquired about one of my strange habits, I could just state, “Well, I’m an artist,” and they would nod their heads in a knowing way, and that would be it. No questions asked. I told Eric all this one day on the porch, while resting on the porch swing, bare feet grazing the decrepit wooden floor.
He turned away from his canvas to face me, and I noticed a smear of red paint across his chin. Somehow, he always seemed to have paint on him. Sometimes, when he would come pick me up to drive him to school, I would get in the car and his hair would still be wet from the shower and smelling of evergreen, but a flake of green paint would be stuck among his shampooed locks. My theory was that his room had so much paint in it, that some paint particles floating around in the air would just condense every now and then, and come down like snow to rest on him. That’s not scientifically possible, he would tell me, kissing my forehead in that way that I hated.
“You don’t want to be an artist,” he said dismissively, turning back to what looked like a bloody smear across the canvas.
“Why not?” I said, pulling my long legs up underneath me. I let go of the chain on the swing, taking notice of the rust stains on my hand.
“We’re tortured souls. Doomed to the fate of having the world appreciate us instead of understand us.” He stepped back from his painting, then set his paints down and plopped down onto the seat next to me, jostling the swing into motion. Sweat glistened on his forehead – from the hard work of painting, I supposed. The weather outside was nice and cool, perfect for sneaking away to the lake on the other side of the woods, like Eric and I did when he first kissed me. He had discovered the lake while searching for inspiring things to paint, and I had discovered him while looking for people to write about.
He led the way to the lake, and I awkwardly followed, my long legs getting caught in everything, leaves collecting in my tangled brown hair. The moon was reflecting off the black, smooth surface of the lake. I could feel Eric’s presence behind me and on a sudden whim, I jumped into the lake, arms and legs wildly waving about. When Eric pulled me out, he looked at me as if he were trying to read a Calculus textbook.
“I don’t understand you.” He stated simply, as if it were a fact.
“Well, I’m a writer,” I joked awkwardly, showing off my sense of humor I didn’t possess, “We’re tortured souls, doomed to the fate of having the world appreciate us instead of understand us.” For a few seconds he just looked at me. That was the first time I’d ever felt pretty.
“What are you painting?” I asked Eric, tracing rusty circles in my palm. He paused, then grinned.
“It’s a secret,” he smiled at my frown, standing up and walking over to his canvas.
“Wait, no,” I said, untangling my legs from beneath me and following him, “Now you have to tell me!” I grabbed his hand, so he couldn’t get his paintbrush. He just smiled and pressed my hand against the white backdrop, leaving a faded orange handprint.
This is a response to: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/daily-prompt-too-big-to-fail/
I know I really only answered the first part of the question. Sorry, folks!
If I couldn’t fail
I would sing on Broadway
I would tap dance and smile
And blow them away
I would learn every language
There is to learn
I would try to set fire
To something that won’t burn
I would teach an ant how to dance
I would build a house
I would do an impression
Of Minnie Mouse
I would write a novel
And have it sell worldwide
I would discover Oz
And become a tour guide
I would make everyone smile
All across the land
I would cure cancer
I would do a handstand
I would grow wings and fly
I would learn Braille
And then, lastly -
I would fail.
To all you math haters – this is for you. 
Oh, horrid, wretched geometry
Why must you mess with me?
I can take a square, that’s fine
But circles are where I draw the line!
Speaking of drawing lines, I can’t seem to
Draw a straight one when I need to
And who put x and y and k
All over my paper today?
Excuse me, teacher, I need a new sheet
This one doesn’t seem complete
Numbers are missing – look, see?
What do you mean finding them is up to me?
Darn it, I’ve messed up multiplying again
Soon, I’ll need a new pencil – my eraser’s getting thin
Why is the clock not moving at all?
I feel like I’m banging my head against a wall
Everyone else is almost done -
I’m still on question number one!
Oh, horrid, wretched, geometry
Why must you mess with me?
I could trap you
With the ropes of rumors
People have so willingly strung
Along the necks of others
Like a death sentence to a reputation
Tug after tug
The floor falls away
I could trap you
Permanently
Carved into your heart
Like the hollowed letters on my desk
Jordon and Hilary Forever
A threat
To cling to that rope
Twist it around my arm
Climbing up like poison ivy
And never let it go
Whispers pulsate through it
A steady, constant flow
Like blood in your veins
Needs oxygen
This needs spite
I could trap you
Or take a knife to the vein
And watch the blood spill freely
Dribble to the ground
So when the floor drops away
There is no rope to suffocate you
Just falling
Tasting the kind of freedom
That dances in your hair
Steals your voice
Nips at the corners of your eyes
The best kind of falling
Is absolutely
Completely
And utterly
Free
This is a response to: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/daily-prompt-fill-blanks/
Three men walked into a bar
And sat down to have a drink
They refilled their cups
Said, “Bottom’s up!”
And tapped mugs with a small clink
Three men walked into a bar
And stayed there all night
They got so destroyed
Everything made them annoyed
They eventually got into a fight
Three men walked into a bar
And were kicked out in the morning
“Get out and stay out!”
The bartender did shout
And that was their first and last warning
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/daily-prompt-mom/
This prompt said to write a letter, but I wrote a poem. I think it counts. I love you, Mom. This is for you.
My Mother
My mother laughs with kindness
And cries with love
Earrings swinging wildly
As she throws her head back
My mother walks with poise
And talks with charm
Stacks of laundry in both hands
Head and shoulder squeezing the phone
My mother hugs with practice
And teaches with patience
Twisting comfort and lectures together
As if stirring pasta sauce into noodles
My mother radiates strength
And smiles with generosity
Walking the tightrope
While juggling three balls
My mother
Is
The
Very
Definition
Of
Beauty
This post is a response to: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/writing-challenge-door/
It also is slightly inspired by The Great Gatsby, which I reread because of the new movie.
For the slang in this story, I used http://local.aaca.org/bntc/slang/slang.htm
A Trip Through Time
I walked up the steps to my house, searching my pocket for my keys with my left hand, while trying to balance my book bag on my right shoulder. Not feeling it in my left coat pocket, I shifted my bag to the other shoulder and reached into my right. Ah, there it was. I grabbed my key and stuck it into the keyhole. Suddenly, a burst of wind came out of nowhere, sneaking up my sleeves and down my neck. Shivering slightly, I turned the lock and pushed open the door.
I stepped inside, turning around quickly to shut the door behind me.
“Mom, I’m h….” My voice trailed off as I turned around. All the familiar furniture and decorations were gone. The house looked unfamiliar. For a few moments, I couldn’t even comprehend. My book bag slowly slid from my shoulder to the floor. I just stood there with my mouth slightly parted, frowning, eyes wandering. Instead of the normal overflowing shoe basket that lay in the foyer, a long, narrow wooden bench sat there, covered in newspapers. A long, white, fur coat was tossed on top of the whole mess. Gone was the fresh coat of white paint Dad had groaned about last summer. In its place was two-toned wallpaper, a flower print on bottom and a cream color on top. I slowly walked up to it, reaching out my fingers in confused wonder and ran them along the length of the very small wall. It felt like a whole different house. What was going on? I stopped when my hand reached a picture frame hanging on the wall. Peering closely, I saw a black and white photo of a woman in a shapeless dress and hat, kicking her leg up behind her as if dancing.
I stared for a few seconds before a thought dawned on me. I took a few steps back, as if it would slow the impact. I tried to control my breathing, but my thoughts started spinning out of control. Hyperventilating slightly, I managed to grab one rational thought from the storm. I ran towards the bench and pushed the fur coat onto the floor, hands shaking, trying to grab a newspaper. I seized the first one I saw, holding it up to my face frantically. My eyes searched the page hurriedly. Date..date….date….where’s the date? Finally, down near the bottom, I found what I was searching for.
“Oh, frick,” I said, sucking in my breath, the newspaper falling from my fingers. “Frick, frick, frick.” I swallowed, trying not to pass out as I reached my hands behind me, searching for the wall. I slid down to the floor unsteadily, trembling from panic. November 2nd, 1922.
After a few seconds of untamed panic, I began to gradually regain my senses. I stood up and shook my head a little bit, trying to form a complete thought. Maybe Mom had just had one of those mid-life crises you hear about and redid the whole house to make it look like 1920s. It could happen. I swallowed, tried to breathe, and took an unsteady step towards the living room.
All of a sudden, I heard a sound at the front door. I whirled around, heart rate speeding up rapidly.
“Well, George, I am sorry to inform you, but that just simply won’t do. I’m terribly busy,” A woman’s voice floated through the door as I heard the sound of a lock clicking. Panicked, I scrambled into the nearest door, which happened to be to the hall bathroom. I barely had time to take in the old-fashioned sink and toilet, when I heard the front door open and shut.
“Virginia, now, don’t be unreasonable. I already told him that we would come.” The man called George had a very loud, commanding voice.
“No, George,” Virginia’s heels clopped across the floor, and I caught a whiff of perfume as she crossed into the living room.
“It’s a shame, then, because it’s supposed to be a real swell party,” George said, following her. I cracked the door open ever so slightly, so I could peer down the hall into the living room. I could see only the side of Virginia. She was a small woman with very short brown hair in a pixie cut. She wore a straight blue dress with many beads and sashes hanging down. She had draped herself across the couch quite dramatically, legs propped up on the table carefully. I watched her raise a cigarette slowly to her burgundy-stained lips, sucking in lazily, then slowly breathing out the smoke.
“I don’t care how ritzy his place is,” she stated, taking another drag from the cigarette, “Everyone who goes to one of his parties, comes out absolutely plastered – “
“Butt me,” George interrupted, holding out his hand. He stood across from Virginia, leaning against the fireplace, wearing a brown suit with a high-waisted jacket and trousers. In response to this command, Virginia reached over to the table and lit another cigarette, continuing to talk.
“Why, Irene Burns went to one of his parties this past week. She walked in all dolled up, and came out completely ossified. Elizabeth said she saw her necking with that fellow – oh, what’s his name? Joseph, Joseph Brock. I’m just trying to say, once you go into a party of his, you come out with a reputation.”
“Necking?” George lifted the cigarette to his lips, then uncrossed his legs, pushing himself off the wall.
“That’s right. Now she’s stuck on him, and he wants nothing to do with her.” Virginia said haughtily as George took the seat next to her.
“And what about you, doll? Cash or check?” George reached across her, putting his cigarette out in the ash tray. Virginia’s eyes were wide as she removed hers from her mouth and blew a puff of smoke straight into his face.
“Bank’s closed, George,” She said after a pause. She lifted her legs to the floor, and tried to get up, but George’s arm was still crossed over her, touching the table. I pushed the door open another inch. They seemed to just be sitting there, staring at each other, when George abruptly bent down and pressed his mouth to hers. She resisted, ever so slightly at first with a small “Mmh!” But very soon, her arms were wrapped around his neck.
This was my shot. I carefully nudged the door open until it was wide enough for me to slip through. I popped my head out to make sure George and Virginia wouldn’t notice me. Sure enough, they seemed pretty occupied on the couch, so I tiptoed out the door, and quietly ran to the front door. Wiping my brow, I breathed a sigh of relief. I turned to open the front door, then realized my book bag was still here. Turning around, I searched the floor for where I had dropped it, but didn’t see it. Had George or Virginia noticed it? Then I saw where I had pushed the big fur coat to the floor in my search for a newspaper. Lifting it up, I picked up my book bag from underneath it.
I slid it up onto my shoulder, then reached for the doorknob. Without warning, a swift blast of cold air swooped over me, passing down the hall into the living room.
“Mm – George,” I heard Virginia’s voice say, slightly out of breath, “Did you feel that? I think the front door may be open. Is someone there?”
As George heaved himself off the couch, I quickly seized the doorknob and turned it, yanking the door open. I heard a gasp and an, “Oy!” from behind me as Virginia and George got a glimpse of me.
I stepped through the doorway and slammed it behind me, running down the steps hurriedly right into my neighbor, Mrs. Halldon, walking her dog.
“Watch where you’re going!” She snapped, pulling her scarf tighter around her wrinkly neck as her dog barked reproachfully at me.
“Sorry,” I muttered, disoriented, stepping aside as I blinked my eyes a few times. The front door to my house opened, and my mom stuck her head out.
“Linda? Was that you who just slammed this door? What are you doing? You were supposed to have come home from school ten minutes ago!” She scolded me.
“I, um, got lost,” I said, still a bit bewildered. Lost. Yeah, sure. Lost in time.
“Well, get inside.” My mother beckoned me, waving her hand. She disappeared inside, leaving the door ajar. I ascended the steps to the door, then pulled it shut behind me. For a moment, I stood there, staring at all the familiar sights – overflowing shoe basket, white walls, hardwood floors.
“What is it?” My mom asked me, frowning concernedly, wiping her hands on her apron. I shook my head, trying to clear it.
“Nothing,” I said, smiling at her. “Nothing.”
Sometimes
In the late afternoon
When the sun is setting
Melting into the horizon
Like butter on a frying pan
I’ll sit on my couch
And watch the rays
Illuminate all the thousands
Of dust particles
Floating, twirling in the air
Drifting along
Submerging themselves in the warm sunbeams
Mesmerized,
I’ll stick my finger
And swirl it slowly around
Watching them dance frantically
As they fly away from my finger
And then
The sun sets
Suddenly
What was light is dark
What was there is not
But I am not worried
I know that
The sun will set again tomorrow
On October 15th 2011, a two-year-old Chinese toddler was run over by two cars. Her name was Wang Yue. Her family called her “Yue Yue.” Eighteen pedestrians and cyclists passed this bloodied little girl, until finally one woman stopped to pull the toddler out of the road and call for help. Wang Yue died the next Friday at the Guangzhou Military District General Hospital. The cause of her death, however, was not announced. Chen Xianmei, the woman who pulled aside Wang Yue, was 57 years old and worked as a garbage collector.
“I was picking up trash in the hardware market when I saw a child lying in the road,” Chen told China Daily. “I walked up in a hurry to the girl and heard her groan. I lifted her up and saw that one of her eyes was closed, that she had tears in her eyes, and she was bleeding from her mouth, nose and the back of her head.”
Many people say how disgusted they are with those who just passed the little girl by or those who ran her over. They say they feel heartbroken for Wang Yue. The apathy these drivers and passersby have shown toward the little girl has shocked thousands of Americans’ hearts. This is one of the many manifestations of what I believe is the greatest problem facing the 21st century today: moral apathy.
Everybody, now and then, has that unsettling feeling that we are going about our business, perhaps content or even bored, while at the exact same moment somewhere else in the world, someone else is being killed, raped or run over by a car. What were you doing on October 15? Maybe you were shopping, reading or talking to friends. You most likely weren’t thinking that somewhere a little Chinese girl was about to get run over. Normally, we as humans, don’t think of things like these all the time, because that would make our lives impossible. Thinking about it makes us feel troubled and even guilty. Although we know we aren’t directly responsible for whatever cataclysmic event is occurring in the world, we can’t help but feel there’s something we could do to help. Most likely there is something we could do, but it may require more effort, time and money than we are willing to invest.
There is another disconcerting thought that lurks in the backs of our minds: that somehow, in some way, we may be responsible to some extent, even for the suffering of people all the way across the world, people who we will never know. In a way, we may be right. By sitting back and doing nothing, by pushing back those unsettling thoughts in our head, and by simply allowing these things to happen, we may be just as bad as those cold-hearted people who ran over a little girl in China. People say things are awful, but they say it knowing it will not affect them. So they choose to not do anything about it. Because it won’t directly impact their lives, they choose to stand by, indifferent. They become so selfish that they forget that the person over there, experiencing that torture, is human too. They may feel a twinge of sympathy for those people, but not enough to motivate them to do something, not enough to make them think that could be me. And that is exactly what’s wrong with our society today. People just don’t care enough about others.
It may seem like a minor thing when you push away those feelings of remorse, but it is exactly that action that will tear us down in the end. United we stand, divided we fall. That indifference, that apathy, will only grow until we are so fixated on helping only ourselves, that we will start to crumble from the inside. It is like climbing a pile of rocks. If you kick others down to try to get to the top, where will you end up eventually? On the ground with all the other rocks. This has already started to happen in our community. Those drivers who ran over the little girl and those passersby who didn’t bother to help her up? They don’t get those feelings of guilt or empathy, and if they do, they have been taught by themselves or others to push them away. Imagine a whole community of people just like them. It wouldn’t be a functioning community. It would be one of negligence and death.
I realize that moral apathy is not something that is new or limited to the 21st century. It has been around for ages. When Adolf Hitler took over the majority of Europe, what did the rest of the world do? We looked away, content to live in our own world, choosing to ignore problems that weren’t our own. However, this moral apathy has been growing, especially in the 21st century with the inventions of new technologies. Living in what seems to be becoming more of a technological world has morphed our feeling around electronics, where :’( means sadness and : ) means happiness. We stop thinking of others as people like ourselves, and our apathy grows stronger.
Moral apathy, or moral indifference, is a major and growing problem in the 21st century. It is also the cause of many of the other major problems in our community today. It is something that, we, as a human race, can control, but we choose to be ignorant, and by choosing that, we make the problem worse. If those two drivers in China had taken the time to stop, or even honk their horns, when they saw that little girl, we might still have one more person alive today. I believe moral apathy is the biggest problem in the 21st century and that we, as a global community, need to stop it
