Sunsets

My room faces the west. As a result, in the mornings it stays cold for a really long time! However, that also means we get to see some spectacular sunsets. Those things just creep up on you! Here are a few pics to sunsets from my room, one today and one from several weeks ago.



It basically makes the cold worth it. Its nice to look up from my work and see something like that.

Heart Light- The Story Begins

Don’t scream.
Don’t cry.
The call will draw the Dark inside.
Hearts are such fragile things
That they will willingly go where the darkness reigns.
Should you cry in fright, shock or fear
When at last before you, your heart’s light appears
Into the darkness your heart will flee
And only darkness will come from where it used to be.
So don’t scream,
Don’t cry
No matter how much the light might sear your eyes,
For such a call will send away
The fragile light a heart emanates

Heart Light

Finding Your Inner Light. The title of the book in her hand was laughable in her opinion. The corny cover illustration of a glittery pink heart with what appeared to be laser beams shooting from it didn’t help to improve her opinion. “Why did I buy this?” she asks herself as she tosses the book onto the floor by her bed. She follows the same motion herself as she plops onto her mattress, inadvertently sending a throw pillow to join the book on the floor.

“Hey, Lesa?” the girl’s roommate asked from the neighboring bed.

“Hm?”

“I’m going to Jack’s place for a party, you want to come?”

“No, thanks.” Lesa responded as she crossed her arms to cradle to head. Her roommate tried for a few minutes to convince her otherwise, but ultimately Lesa found herself alone in her dorm room as the light in the room faded with the coming of night.

Lesa opted for staying alone this night so she could ponder the outcome of the workshop she had attended earlier that day after which she had purchased the book now residing on her floor. In the past months, she had taken to attending classes on spiritualism, religion and faith in an attempt to “find out what was missing in her life”. Her father had taken to harassing her about her lack of religion every call home, arguing that her dissatisfaction with the world had to result from her rejection of religion in her childhood. Indeed, not a power in existence was capable to convincing Lesa to go to church, not since her mother died. Finally her father had resorted to giving the okay on any and all religions, clubs, groups and whatever so long as she would stop being so darned negative about life. He was even paying for it.

The latest endeavor lead her into some New Age religions. The earlier workshop was lead by a grungy long haired man that seemed to have missed the hippy age. Not a thing he said made any sense to Lesa, yet she found herself purchasing his book after the class. In all likely-hood she was just using the book as an excuse to spend her dad’s money as payback for pushing her to attend such garbage. However, this same excuse would not explain why she found herself picking up the book and reading the first chapter. On the first page was a grim little poem about losing your heart to the darkness. Yet, despite her scoffs she found herself skipping through the book for more information.

“Wow,” she murmured to herself, “ ‘Power exists already within yourself, completely separate from whatever power and spiritual aid you might request from a greater power’. That’s a nice change from ‘ooh, our god is all powerful, and you are not, fear him!!!’” She giggled to herself. And so, she found herself become more and more intrigued to the point that after reading about finding your inner heart she thought, “Why not?” put the book back on the floor to try it.
She drew from her experience on mediation and shamanic journey’s from some other unfortunate religious endeavors in order to find inner peace and go to her inner world. It was really a lot like daydreaming.

She imagined herself leaving her body and wandering her room, her own personal safe space. The book had stated that to find your heart, you had to find the light within your inner world. So Lesa stood by her bed and looked around for a light. Surely a light would not be too hard to find, she thought, yet there was no light in sight. She left her dorm room to find herself in the hall of her home. At the end of the hall, the door to her childhood bedroom was ajar. She wandered into her old room and found everything as she used to have it in her childhood. But she saw no light.
In the corner facing the window was an antique armoire she had inherited from her grandmother. Thinking the light might be hidden in there, she opened it only to find the park where her mother took her to play as a child inside.

Things continued like this for sometime. Lesa ended up traversing not only her room and the park, but her parent’s room, the attic where she used to play dress-up with her mother’s old clothes, the forest where her family used to go camping every summer, her grandmother’s garden, etc, etc, but no where could she find her heart.

Eventually the girl gave up. She turned around to find her dorm room behind her. And right here, she found something suspicious. At the foot of her bed sat a chest that wasn’t supposed to be there. It was her mother’s old chest where she stored her books and drawings, souvenirs and pictures from her childhood. That chest used to sit in the corner of the office, but after she died, her father had moved it into a dark corner of the attic. Lesa hadn’t seen the thing in years. The floor creaked beneath her feet as she crept towards the chest. She dropped to her knees before it and carefully unlocked it and pulled the lid up. Inside there were pictures of her and her mother together before her mother had gotten sick; pictures from years ago. But there was a bit of golden light peaking out from beneath a picture of her mother and her at a festival.

She moved the picture aside, and there, glowing like a star was an orb of golden light. It’s light was warm on her face. Looking at it felt like laying under the sun on a warm spring day. It’s so bright, I bet it is hot, Lesa thought, and with that thought in mind she extended her hand towards it to hesitantly brush her fingers against its surface. It was hot alright, touching it felt like sticking your hand into a fire, and as she touched it, the light had flared, burning her eyes.

She screamed.

And the pain was gone. She opened her eyes, yet she saw nothing. “Oh god, I went blind from looking into my heart.” If she were not halfway to hysterics she probably would have laughed at the thought. But alas, she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, and that is a very sobering concept.

Recent Works

It's been a while....again. I have a few new works and one big work in progress. Here are the new poems. The last is the intro to a short story I am working on. Enjoy!

Rune Incantation

Fire, Water, Air and Earth;
Those are the forces that to these stones gave birth.
Those same forces are alive in me,
With out power shared, let us see.
Divine the future,
Explain the past,
Let the answers lie in these runes cast.
Earth and Sky, Sun and Moon
Reveal this to me as your boon.



Damn, I'm Beautiful

Sometimes I’m not enough
To satisfy myself.
Who’s that girl in the picture?
Surely I’m not her?

Sometimes I think I’m fat,
Sometimes I think I’m short,
Sometimes I wonder who I am,
And in the mirror, who is that?

Standing next to my peers,
I feel inferior,
Looking so beautiful, so fair,
I fear I don’t compare.

I wonder if I see myself
For how I truly am?
Or is my image of myself
Skewed by some mental scam?

Sometimes I don’t like myself
And I wish that I would change
Sometimes I know for sure I should
But don’t know where to begin.

But then sometimes, late at night
I stretch before the mirror—
And smile a very satisfied smile
Before playing with my hair,

Because alone at night
The girl I see
By the bathroom’s light
Is the woman I want to be.

Such full breasts—
What sensual curves—
Dark but vibrant eyes
And rich voluminous hair,

At such times as these,
I really can’t help but think,
Despite my daytime insecurities,
“Damn, I’m beautiful.”


Don't scream. Don't cry.

Don’t scream.
Don’t cry.
The call will draw the Dark inside.
Hearts are such fragile things
That they will willingly go where the darkness reigns.
Should you cry in fright, shock or fear
When at last before you, your heart’s light appears
Into the darkness your heart will flee
And only darkness will come from where it used to be.
So don’t scream,
Don’t cry
No matter how much the light might sear your eyes,
For such a call will send away
The fragile light a heart emanates.



Hang tight for the ensuing short story!

2/3s of the way through the summer

Its the last day of July, my summer vacation is 2/3 over and I don't have much to show for it. Well, a trip to Japan, that's quite a bit to show for it, but aside from that, not much. I don't have steady work, so I am dirt poor. I can't get steady work because I don't have a car. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but my uncle wrecked my car while he was still living with us. As a result of that and our own lack of money, I don't have a car to call my own. Therefore, my ability to leave the house is controlled by the availability of my parents. I had wanted to go to the gym on a regular basis to get into shape. Too bad the gym is a ten minute drive away. My work-out schedule is thus governed by how tired my mom is after coming home from work. That sucks a lot. I am officially bored of being home and I am fully ready to go back to school where I can work, study and work out at my leisure because everything is in walking distance.

My unproductive summer can be blamed on my bad luck (fired from movie theater on a misunderstanding of words and not having a steady job at my back-up because my mom's boss told them I would be in Japan in the summer, so they hired somebody else!!! My only work for the summer comes from organizing this woman's house for her!) and on the lay-out of suburbia. Damn you Suburbia!! Because of you I can't go anywhere but Walgreens without use of a car. You are bad for the environment and you ruin my life! Damn you to hell!

I am very ready to go back to school. I have also had very little social contact this summer. Most of my friends are taking summer classes. (I couldn't take summer courses even if I needed to because I can't afford them. I'm maxed out on financial aid) The two friends that aren't out of town on vacation or at school work 9-5 every day because they have steady work! What the hell? I mean really! What the hell did I ever do to anybody to deserve this luck? I could of sworn I was a decent person!

ugh...

The walls are blue.

The walls in my room at home are blue; a deep dark blue that make all times of day feel like twilight if the blinds are closed. Like my feelings about my own self-image, my feelings about my room change often. The walls are bold, and I sometimes and sorely tempted to invest in new paint to repaint my walls a nice calming light teal, something closer to turquoise or sea foam. I have yet to do such a thing. Maybe one day. But since I continue to swing back to liking the calming darkness of my room, the color is likely to stick around for some time yet.

The colors of my room promote dreams, or so I like to think. I could always just be full of it. Speaking of which, and quickly skipping over the fact that I have recently re-realized that my self image in both reality and in my dreams do not match the reality of how I actually look to others, nor do my self images and dream images match each other, I had a cool dream the night before last. My mom interrupted me before I could finish writing the entirety of the dream in my recently rediscovered dream journal, but I still remember almost all of the dream. I have found that if I think really hard soon after waking, forcing myself to relive the dream in waking while the dream is still fresh, I can remember most of it. Then later, when I go through the dream in my mind again, I can actually re-dream it in waking life.

The dream starts with me being in a large crowded hall with a group of friends. Awake I realize that none of my friends in my dream are friends in real life, let alone real people I have ever seen. Ignoring that, I run away from the city with these friends when the government informs the population that a human eating demon is moving into the city and there is nothing they can do to stop it. While others cry out in terror, myself and six others slip out of the hall and hike out of the city under cover of darkness. All the while we were terrified of being caught by the human eating demon during our escape from the city. We escape unhindered, retreating deep into the forest to an old abandoned camper trailer. The trailer was shaped more like a house, square in shape rather than rectangular. Inside there was a small entrance way with a sink, stove, and a bathroom in a closet. A second door within this entrance area leads into the rest of the trailer, that is a large square room that someone had set up with three sets of bunks and one lone twin sized bed. Tall windows were obstructed by the bunks that took up all the wall space save for a few feet of wall that was covered by a tall dresser instead.

The seven of us lived here commuting into the city when we needed something and to work, but otherwise staying secluded in the woods. Our hope being that the human eating demon would stay in the city were his prey was concentrated and easily captured rather than all the way out in the middle of no where he would have to search a long time to find only a few.

Months passed with us living in the trailer, winter set in. Five were inside bundled up in their beds, retaining what warmth they had. Myself and one other girl were inside, but not in bed. The two of us found that some animal, a raccoon most likely had gotten into the entrance way. We ran to shoo it away. The door was mainly made of glass which the animal broke in escaping. As a result, the cold was flowing into the cabin in mass. The other girl chased the animal away, then came in freezing. She looked at the door. "What are we going to do?" She asked.

"Don't worry, I answer, I will take care of it. Go back inside and get warm." Once the other girl was inside the main room I got started piling up the snow that had blown inside. I managed to construct a new door, or rather, more of a snow and ice barricade to keep in the warmth and out the wind. However, the shattered glass of the door was all over the floor, and I ended up cutting my hands while constructing the barricade. As a result, my blood was mixed in the snow and ice of the barricade.

Once done, I bandaged myself and went to bed. I don't know if it was days or hours before I woke next in the dream. I may have become ill constructing the barrier of snow and ice in the cold of the blizzard that had been howling outside of the trailer. I know that at one point in time that I became aware of the other people in the trailer they were discussing the possibility that the smell of my blood all over the makeshift door might draw animals, or the demon. The eldest guy among us, a man in his upper twenties reassured the other of the unlikelihood of the demon being drawn to the smell of blood this far from the city. He also mentioned the deal the government had cut with the demon. People had stopped going to work, terrified of being caught by the demon. To encourage people to go about their lives, they go the demon to agree to only prey upon children so that the adults could protect the children, keep them inside and always accompanied by adults so that the adults were safe, and should a child be taken, the blame could be lain on the adult for not taking proper care to fully protect the child. With this agreement, the demon could not come after us. We are all adults. A woman wondered aloud, "But, if the government has no power over the demon to get him to leave the city, what power do they have over him to make him limit who he preys upon?"

When I next woke I realized I was in bed. I didn't actually recall getting into this particular bed. It was the upper bunk, close to the ceiling. The window reached from the bottom bunk all the way to just a few inches from the ceiling, so when I opened my eyes, it was like I was outside. I could not see the wall when I first opened my eyes.

However, as soon as I opened my eyes, I shut them. Sitting in a tree only twenty feet from the side of the trailer was a man. A man with curly brown hair hanging over his closed eyes, his arms crossed over his chest, and one leg hanging from his perch, the other crossing the branch to stabilize him. From his back extended two expansive dark brown bat wings that hung on either side of him towards the ground.

Sitting in the tree outside my window was the demon.

I did everything in my power to keep my features relaxed, like I was still just sleeping. Moments passed. The inside of the trailer was quiet, where was everyone else? All I could hear was the morning song of the birds outside. Eventually the urge to see if the demon was still there sleeping in his perch overwhelmed me. I very slowly allowed my eyes to open so I could see out through just my lashes. There was the demon, still in his same perch, same position. I almost relaxed, that is until I realized his eyes were open, and he was watching me.

I allowed my eyes to flutter closed, continuing to pretend I was sleeping. I stretched my arms over my head, and my legs out all the way so my toes touched the foot board. It was indcredibly difficult to feign sleepiness and sleep laden limbs when adrenaline was pumping through my system, my heart racing a mile a minute. Still in my stretch, I tried to decide whether or not to turn my back, turn over and curl up and continue feigning sleep until the demon left. I heard that the demon couldn't enter a home unless he was invited inside. I could pretend he wasn't there. I was safe.

I rolled over at the end of my stretch, eyes still closed and curled up in a tight ball, arms wrapping around my legs. Moments passed again. Soon enough, curiosity got the best of me, and I opened my eyes to see if there was anyone else in the trailer. I didn't feign sleep this time, just opened my eyes. The promptly flew open in shock. There was the demon sitting on the window sill on the other side of the room, and staring straight at me. He was inside. Inside alone with me.

"You're finally awake. I had been worried." the demon said. It seemed as if one moment he was on the other side of the room, then he was standing beside the bed, stroking my face in a way that can only be described as "lovingly".

In terror, I had no voice to speak.

"Don't fear me love. Your government had told me they would give me my mate no matter who she was, whether she wanted to come with me or not, if I agreed to their limitations on my prey. I jumped at the opportunity to have you."

Me? His mate?

"I smelled your blood on the wind. I was furious to find you hurt. You friends didn't take very good care of you. I could have lost you."

"Where are they?" I asked. Had he eaten them?

"Your government arrested them. Any other questions?"

"How did you get inside?"

"I got permission from you government. The same reason they arrested your friends. You were squatting on government land without paying taxes, let alone rent. As such, this building does no belong to you or your friends, but to your government, and when I told them there were illegal squatters keeping my mate from me, they took them away and gave me permission to enter. I've been looking after you."

Looking for me? The human eating demon? Me, his mate?

Here, the rest of the dream becomes fuzzy. I know there is some adventure in the city as I try to flee the demon. Eventually I take to running to him rather than away. Then there is another exciting adventure on an island in the middle of the sea surrounded by other small islands. For some reason there is a threat of the sea swallowing the island we were on, and we had to retreat onto another island on a little row boat. I haven't quite been able to recall the connection between these dream segments. I think the disparity can be explained by my having woken briefly when my mom arrived home to do some errands.

I feel like the first half has the foundations to become a really cool short story. What do you think?

It's been some time, ne?

It truly has been quite some time since my last post. Things have been a little crazy. I had spring break, that was nice. But now it's over. That's not nice.

I believe that I mentioned once before, a long time ago, that my uncle was living with us. Well, now he's not. I felt guilty when I found out that he was no longer in our house. For a brief moment, I wondered if it happened because I wished for it. I wanted him to move out and go out on his own, stop freeloading and disrupting our once peaceful home life. However, I reassured myself, I didn't wish for what he got. (Though don't think I didn't see it coming.)

My uncle was arrested.

It happened at a very bad time. My parents left him in charge of our house and our pets for one night while they flew up to visit my brother and I to see an Edgar Meyer concert and the following master class in which my elder brother played for Edgar Meyer. Prior to the Edgar Meyer Concert, I was sitting next to my parents in a balcony seat overlooking the stage. After my parents informed me of the slightly dangerous highly eventful flight. After this, my mom turned to fully face me in her seat and said, "Guess what's new with your uncle."

My first guess had been that his girlfriend in Puerto Rico was pregnant, then I remembered that she had already gotten been pregnant and had a miscarriage since he'd been with us, so she couldn't be pregnant. Then I remembered how he had been depressed and moping the entire time I was home because he had found out that there was a warrant out for his arrest in Puerto Rico. Before I left, I had come to understand that it was a misunderstanding, and the case he thought it was referring to had already been dismissed in the past. With this in mind, I made my guess.

"He got arrested."

"Yes"

"Oh god..."

I'll spare you details, though I'm sure you actually want them. Well, you can't have them! J/K!

Maybe later. Anyways, my uncle in currently in jail, waiting to see whether or not he will be extradited to Puerto Rico. He's mad at my mom, even though really she's the only person able to help him. When she first found out that he had been arrested, during her time with her children, mind you, she immediately set to calling the police office, the prison, his girlfriend, trying to find out where he was and how to help him. While she was on the phone with my uncle's girlfriend, she stated that when her brother got his phonecall, hopefully, he'd call her instead of the girlfriend. Well, this pissed off the girlfriend. I see why, but really, come one. She's in Puerto Rico! There's really not much that woman can do for her man who's been arrested several thousand miles away! None the less, she's holding a grudge and not answering my mom's calls, leaving my mom to communicate with my uncle's lawyer without her. Now my uncle is mad at my mom for insulting his girlfriend after all that our family has done for him! What an ungrateful freeloader! He broke my car, made a mess of our house, moved in and changed my brother's room, and after all that, he has the nerve to be upset at my mom for being sensible, something he obviously is not.

Do you want to know how the police found him? He said he wanted to kill himself while he was at work. His boss called the police to tell them he was worried this man might try to take his own life, then they had his name in the system to discover the warrant our for him. I really, really don't have much patience for the suicidal.

I understand, some people really need help. They don't have the personal strength to handle the problems life throws at them. As a result, they lose hope and eventually say they want to kill themselves, which is really a call for help, because if they really truly wanted to die, they would do something about it, not talk about it.

The thing is, he had been moping around for some time, depressed. My mom knew he had problems with depression and repeatedly reached out to him, asking him to talk to her, or seek help. Instead, he goes to work, to his brand new job he only just secured and tells people he wants to kill himself! What the fucking hell? Now he's in prison, he's completely fucked up his life more so than it was before, and stressed out my mom who is the only sensible person among her troubled siblings. She doesn't deserve all the trouble her brother is putting her through. For that, I am furious with him, and I really can't bring myself to feel sorry for him and his situation. He brought it on himself. He committed a crime, he left Puerto Rico, then drew the attention of the authorities to himself. It's his fault, and he shouldn't bring my family down with him. I can't feel the familial bonds with a man that is only family by blood, not by familiarity. I have not seen anything of this man since I was 11. I am soon turning 20. He appears in the life of my family and brings with him stress and awkwardness. I can't feel bad.

And for that, I feel terrible.

My specialness

Today I managed to slice my finger open on my umbrella while I was attempting to retrieve it from my backpack's side pocket. I think it takes a certain amount of talent to slice your finger open on something like that. Therefore you should all fear and worship my amazing self-injuring powers. I don't even try.