I stare down at my 6th grade yearbook picture.

A familiar face stares back at me.

I looked so young and child-like, even though back then I thought of myself as practically an adult. Unaware, I was about to be introduced to a harsh reality. Soon I was to learn that not everyone who opened a door for me or smiled at me had good intentions. It was as if the mirror I looked into every morning had been smashed into tiny bits. It was a tough adjustment for me. And maybe the mirror that broke wasn't just my innocence, but also my sense of identity and self-esteem. Looking back on it now, if I could go back in time, I would change many things.

First of all, I would be kinder to strangers.

I wouldn't see everything as a competition.

I wouldn't try to prove myself at every opportunity, and I wouldn't try to hide my story, my history, my identity.

I was an emotional wreck.

But despite all of that, I was able to make good friends.

Now that I am older I feel wiser, but also confused.

It seems as though the more questions I've worked through, the less answers I have.

The more knowledge I attain-the less certain I am.

I still don't know what happens when someone dies, and I still don't know where the sun goes at night.

I admit. I still don't know a lot of things, but at least this time I have nothing to hide.

#reflection #thoughts #random #life #transitions #knowledge

I've searched everywhere

Day and Night

Every crook and cranny

But I've found nothing

Only going in circles.

No footprints

No trace of you

Nothing in the air

Nothing on the ground

Gone.

But my hunger

frustrates

Because I want more

But I have no string to hold on to you with

What once was is now gone for good

Reaching you seems impossible

Yet a feeling whispers in my ear

That it will be soon

My waiting will end

And you will come on your own

And find me

When I am no longer able

to find you.

#yearning #words #poetry

walking down the hall on a thursday

or was it tuesday I don't know

turn the corner 'for you reach homeroom

when you see another somebody

walkin' towards you

you don't know her

she don't know you

but you see it there

here comes a girl with the weight of the world

weighin' on her skinny shoulders

you don't know why

and you prob'ly never will

maybe she's the only thing holding together her family

maybe she's missing someone overseas

maybe she's just plain depressed

walking down the halls in her old-school dress

but she can't fix things on her own.

when you look in the bathroom mirror

and there's that hairbrush you lost a month ago!

yes, right there!

look, see?

right there, in...

the...

mirrror.

but it's not on the counter.

and if it is, it's unseeable.

and that's when you know.

you've had a little too much coffee this morning.

I keep knocking but there's no answer.

Over and over I pound on its door,

But all I recieve is silence.

Sometimes it feels like it only opens to others

Without them even having to knock,

It welcomes them in, and offers them a cup of tea.

I'm left waiting in the rusted corner

Waiting for a turn I was never promised.

Like searching for answers for an undefined problem.

Like sitting in a patient waiting room for hours and hours, to find out

There is no doctor.

Doubts and worries surround me like grey fog.

Am I even supposed to be here?

More

Silence

Neglect

Darkness.

That's how it feels sometimes,

When life doesn't answer,

When the universe doesn't work the way it ought to,

The world seems to be out of order.

And no one knows where the repairman is.

#world #outoforder #poem #defeat #life

I'm not a very nice person. Most people would probably call me one anyway, but only because it's what you say when you don't know someone well enough to speak good or ill of them.

Honestly, most of the time I prefer the company of books to people. Actually I prefer the company of trees to people, while we're here being so up-front and all. I love my best friend, but even though she and her boyfriend are long distance now, they still manage to make me feel like the third wheel no one asked for. I do have other friends and school friends, but I can't see my actual friends as much as I would like to due to distance and not going to school together and whatnot, and my school friends are more akin to aquaintances, and that's being generous if you ask me.

I'm not easy to talk to, I guess, or maybe I just don't find talking all that easy. Whatever the reason, the people in my life don't really tend to know me all that well. But you're about to know a lot.

*****************

1. You're reading this online, I know, but picture it like this instead:

You were browsing the shelves of your favourite bookstore, when a smallish volume, crammed hastily onto the bottom shelf of a bookcase tucked way in the back, caught your eye. You pick it up, out of sheer curiosity if nothing else. It's a hardback book with a green cover, the lettering on the front in plain brown type. On the front cover is a picture of the house you see in my profile picture. You turn it over to find: nothing. No summary, no author photo. No publisher, come to think of it. You flip through the pages, but most of them are empty. There's only a title page, followed by a dedication page bearing the words "Find me beneath the apple tree. I wait for you." There's also a first chapter, so you sink down into the nearest red armchair, plushy yet somehow perfectly firm, and begin to read this perplexing volume. This is where we are now. Do you follow me?

2. If you have a distaste for magic and stories about magic, this is not the book for you.

3. I hope you have a lot of free time, because we're in this for the long haul here. If you're unwilling to follow, put the book back where you found it please. Give someone with half a sense of adventure the chance to discover it.

Still here?

Really?

Great. Let's begin.

********************

Sneak the book out of the store. Don't worry, no one will notice. In case you didn't already guess, it isn't strictly speaking a regular bookstore-library-ordinary book you're holding. And don't worry about there only being one chapter. You'll find that as you read, the story writes itself.

Sincerely,

- the Dryad

(Postscript: if you were expecting a name, I'm surprised at you. Is the mystery not intriguing enough in itself? If you must, picture glasses, dark hair, and a face hidden behind a drawing of an apple tree, only with bright red books hanging from its branches in the place of delicious fruit. Satisfied? I hope not.)

We dream

We dance

We laugh

We love

With our eyes closed.

We taste

We think

We play

We feel

With our eyes closed.

We live through our most glorius moments with our eyes closed.

But,

When I'm afraid, I close them too.

When my thoughts are at war with one another, I close them again.

And when things frustrate, I close them once more.

Sometimes it feels like the only thing you can do. To close

And to reopen.

And sometimes, it's the best you can do.

She sat alone, entirely alone; imperceptably alone. She had shut the door and (as a precaution from catching cold) the curtains, as well as the windows, were tightly closed. She sat at her little table with its curved legs and modest drawers. The handles elaborately shaped and untarnished from persistent use. She sat looking forward, with her hands in her lap, a face in the elegant vanity frame staring back: naked; real. There was just enough light to discern deep bags under the eyes and worry lines carved into the corners of the mouth. Like in a secret lab, she had before her a number of special jars and contraptions to serve various jobs.

She poured some liquid into a well used sponge and taking the slimy thing to her face proceeded to polish and buff as one does with patented leather. When this was caked on (and dried) she methodically moved on to a very pointed stick, which she took in one hand, while with the other, she stretched an eyelid simultaneously over and down. With a grimace she held this pose, proceeding to scrape across the upper lid with black grease from the sharpened tip. This complete, she grimaced again and drew across the lower lid, right next to the eye. And then she repeated everything on the other side--stretching, scraping, twisting her mouth and straining.

With a sort of miniture sweep, she dusted dirt from a dish over her eyes. Next she took a tube of something sanguine, and curving her lips as if in a mock grin, smeared the fresh blood round and round; smacking her lips finally in an automatic reflex, up and down. Taking a bristled brush, not unlike a chimney sweep, she precariously rolled oily gunk upon the tips of her eyelashes. Then taking a scissor like device that ended in a clamp (rather than the customary blades) she vehemently squeezed the lashes between the metal, so that they were forced back-- and hardening in the black liquid, they stayed curled up like that. With a pair of pinchers, she winced, yanking out several lashes from her brows.

Lastly, she took pieces of plastic from her head. Unrolling them along with strands of falling out hair, she then varnished the mounds with a fixative spray---just like one does for an impermenant work of art that is about to be put out on display. She looked in the glass and gave it a practiced smile. She was pleased to see that there was nothing left of her there...

She seized with unclean hands

the cusp of a new day dawning,

crumpled it into a little wad

throwing it into clouded sky.

She chose instead to relive

the glory days of their love,

two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,

a perfect harmony until

they no longer balanced.

He had blackened and charred

while she was still unscathed

in her own demented mind

as she threw gasoline

around his sleeping hulk

and lit a match which flamed

with such exquisite beauty.

The scorched flames arose, as

she clasped vignettes of the past

to her besmirched breast.

Yesterday was smoldering

in the embers while she

had tossed today away forever,

in rumpled shreds of darkness.

Tomorrow would arise

like a burning phoenix

as would her new beginning

out of the strewn ashes

vacant without him.

#Darkness #Challenge #LoveAshes

There's Ibuprofen for headaches.

Antibiotics for bacterial infections.

Casts for broken bones.

Antihistamines for allergies.

Food for hunger.

Water for thirst.

But what is there really for the heart?

There is no remedy for heartbreak.

Only a treatment. Which consists of:

Me, Myself & I, a tub of icecream,

pizza, and good music at 1 am.