no one knows,
No one knows,
that the smile on her face,
isn’t real.
No one knows,
that the beautiful dresses,
that she wears every day,
are slowly choking her.
No one knows,
that the laugh she makes,
is a cry for help,
strangled,
forced.
No one knows,
behind her confident facade,
is an insecure little girl,
wrapped in chains,
banging on the doors,
crying out every time she’s laughed at.
No one knows,
because no one cares to find out.
Every one,
thinks she’s okay,
maybe even better than okay.
So know one knows...
that she hates herself,
that empty shell,
that hollow carcass,
her soul,
eaten alive,
by her own demons.
Art is therapy.
I gazed at every landscape
of every picture and portrait
that my eyes set their sight upon.
Wondered what all unseen secrets
lie beneath
the grinning air in it,
the literal words of that prose
sung by daffodils swaying
in the merry wind
and the layers of paint in that portrait,
painted by a solitary lad
of a small, cold town.
I have
mixed that red with black
and painted drops of it onto something
as lifeless as a corpse
saying that they resemble my tears.
Lifeless
but bringing it alive
with each word
soaked in peace, pain and paradise,
with each movement of my wrist
while stroking the different brushes,
the tip of my pen,
and the graphite end of my pencils
lifting that
iron wrought
weight off the surviving flesh
of my soul.
Art adds the 't' at the end of 'pain'.
Smeared on my hands,
the ink spots bearing whispers of rhymes,
paint stains bearing sobs of a rose.
I handlettered
'solace' across the different horizons
of the skies,
to imbibe myself of it,
when rain the blues.
I shouted poetry off the top of my terrace
until my throat was sore
and heart floating
alongside its reverberations.
I made an aesthetic container
out of my mother's broken cup,
and filled it with waters of a dream,
and hung it over
the most fragile branch of the tree.
I doodled names of wizards
on that same tree
with a blade of the melancholies.
I gulped down one book after another.
One story after another.
One poem after another.
Each had its own taste and fragrance.
Sour. Salty. Sweet. Bitter. Hot.
Sad. Funny. Romantic. Cheesy. Magical.
Heartwarming. Heart-rending.
I tore paper hearts, pandas,
teardrops, flowers and stars,
and pasted them in my
journal of fantasies.
All unrealistic, inhumane and satirical.
Pain of the January and the May.
All unending ballads or essays
combined
would still be short of praise,
that art possesses
in relieving the pain
off an agonized being.
Here's a glittery pizzazz
thank-you card,
to art itself.
Art is the best coping mechanism.
Art is therapy.
Recollections & Reflections
The eye’s thread
with each
golden year —
loose ends
tied underneath.
A tapestry
meets trimming shears;
my mind plays
hide and seek.
Tossed into
a wishing well;
patina covers copper —
penny for a thought,
do tell,
if only I
could capture.
Treasured dreams
from wishes
lost beneath
the light of sea;
sleeping with the fishes,
ghosts of
sunken memories —
locked behind
a two way mirror,
the former me remains,
etched upon
my soul
&
tears
that scratch
the window pane.
The Golden Rule
When you want the readers to know something about a character or scene don't say it, show it.
Instead of saying, The sky is blue, say it in more detail; she gazed up. the perfect combination of blue and white. it lit up her eyes.
Another example of the golden rule.
Alex likes Mallissa. WRONG
His thoughts spun around him like a carousel. Does she like me? Does she feel the same way? Does Malissa even know me? CORRECT
See the difference. If you are always explaining everything as a narrator then your readers won't be interested and eventually get bored.
Follow the Golden Rule. Show Don't Tell.
Green to Gold—Dust to Dirt
Memories, like leaves, start green and soft and lush. Life pulsates through them—pulling nutrients from the soil, soaking up light from the sun.
Each day they grow, dancing with the wind. When it rains, droplets—like crystal tears—kiss the foreheads of these vibrant green toddlers as they wave and dance and love.
At the peak of their journey, the very top of their game, things change: Winds shift; air cools; water (once the bearer of life) wears a frozen necklace to the party. The leaves grow old, shifting from glowing green to frigid gold.
So, too, our memories—once lively and living—fall to the ground, become brittle and brown, until they fall apart, devolving into ever smaller pieces. Then finally dust, swallowed by the earth, mixing with the dirt. Gone.
With Winter’s white blanket hiding their ever-lost graves, they await Spring’s thaw—when nature’s nudge will launch their journey from dirt to roots, through trunks and limbs, to touch the sun again—bringing joyful memories back to life.
Copyright 2020
Strange
How strange it feels that things in life don't last forever
How things come and you'd think that they'll be around for a long time
Then you realise they're gone.
How strange it is to feel
Your heart bursting with butterflies, happiness and affection
Then that turns to agony, hate, despair
How strange it is to think that he or she is the one
Then you think to yourself, "what a waste of time"
How strange it is to have the best time of your life with the people you care about
Then the next thing you know, you're miles away from them
How strange it is to think that your family will forever be intact
Then your parents decided that their love for each other is lost
Strange as it seems, they come and go for a reason
They do it to help you learn, grow
But the strangeness and the emptiness you feel inside doesn't seem to make any sense
But I know deep inside, this world is temporary
Just keep going, let them pass, let them go.
Orange ya glad I didn’t say banana?
CHALLENGE: Create new words that rhyme with orange. @Ernaline
Borange — Scale (from 1-10) used to determine how boring oranges are.
Corange — Yellowish, stringy connective tissue in the center of oranges.
Dorange — Hinge that holds a door to the door-jamb.
Forange — Orange from another country.
Gorange — Time it takes Al Gore to explain climate change.
Horange — Range of scariness in a horror movie, ranked 1-10.
Jorange — Bi-pod mammal from the planet Jor.
Korange — Bi-pod mammal from the planet Kor.
Lorange — Where you go when you're sick of working on the Hirange.
Morange — What you order when Lesrange isn't enough.
Norange — What you end up with when your electric range stops working.
Porange — Result when your arrows keep falling short of a target.
Quorange — When you expand the calculation of your Quid Pro Quo.
Rorange — How far you can row upstream in a canoe or rowboat.
Sorange — The number of seeds that you can sow in an hour.
Torange — Distance you can kick a can down the road.
Vorange — Vocal range when singing “Do-Re-Mi” from the “Sound of Music.”
Worange — Distance it takes to slow down a horse by saying, “Whoa!”
Xorange — Proper length of a hug-kiss between two people who are “just friends.”
Zorange — Length of time it takes a group of kids to see all the animals in a zoo.
Copyright 2020