AP Lit and Comp-First Post

I haven't written for a year and half! Wow, well now I'm in a new AP Lit and Comp class and back on my blog again. :)  
My Strengths and Weaknesses This Year
 I'm really excited to be starting my senior year of high school! I think in some respects this year will be easier because it's my last year and I've kind of gotten used to being at JDHS and I'm more comfortable in school than when I was an underclassman. I think one of my weaknesses is that because I am a senior, I am ready to graduate so it may be harder for me to concentrate on being in the moment instead of thinking ahead. As much as I'm excited to finish high school I'm also nervous. I definitely don't think I'm ready to be an adult. I just turned seventeen a week ago and I can't imagine being an adult in a year from now.  This school year started quickly, and I can already sense that this year, in particular, will be stimulating and fun and I am excited for the future.  I am beginning to narrow my focus of interests and seriously consider what I want to do with my future. 

One weakness of mine is that I'm very anxious and a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to assignments. If I know I have an assignment due I will mull over an idea for a while until I'm sure it's the right one and then I will edit the essay over and over again until it's right. Sometimes I stay up late working on assignments due the next day, because I have changed them so much.  I know that with writing, one can edit their piece over and over and never feel it is ready, and I am trying to make my final "enough" but it is a habit that I struggle with.

One strength of mine is that I love creative writing and reading good literature.  I enjoy creating characters and developing their personality traits.  The small details are what develop the person and give them idiosyncratic qualities that flesh out their personality.   When I develop a new character, I make sure that my antagonists and protagonists both have their share of  negative and positive traits so they don't have a "Stepford" quality that will make readers stop wanting to read, and additionally might make them more able to relate.  I'm excited to read new books that will challenge me to write better descriptions and dialogue.  I took a creative writing class in sophomore year and it was my favorite class. When I write, I feel relaxed so I know writing is a great stress reliever.  It takes me to another place and out of my existence, and it is almost therapy.

As much as I love writing in my free time, sometimes I get writer's block so being at school and being forced to produce during class time may help relieve the writer's block I suffer from sometimes. Plus, I'm glad to be back on my blog!

Away From The Fall

As the semester comes to an end, I was looking back at some of my past poetry and decided to post one I had written in October.

Away From The Fall

Fear is a fall day,

Fear is leafless trees and their scattered remains,

Fear is the cracking of the leaves you step on,

Fear is the darkness in the sky that comes too early,

Your thoughts race before you, tripping like red leaves on their way to the ground,

The tree you loved to sit under in summer- it's bare,

Wanting to sleep, wanting to burrow, wanting to hibernate like the Alaskan bears,

You find yourself pulled back into the group,

Fear feels just the same,

Just as if your friend had come to play,

And no one answers the door, the phone rings to your message,

"I'm not here right now; I'm not really here when I'm here"

Fear is the autumn days that turn dark before we even have a thought to dance in the light,

Terror strikes through you and it feels like wind,

You almost can't catch your breath,

Fear is unbearable cold that sinks somewhere deep inside,

Fear is forgetting to put your coat on in the morning,

Pink cheeks and blue blue feet,

You burrow inside the month of October, ticking down the moments of your life,

Your pull yourself inside yourself,

And sleep until the snow comes, your sleep until you want to run,

And then you run-away from the multitudes and crowds, away from yourself,

Away from the fear,

And away from the fall...

Mistakes

Here's a poem I wrote. I wrote "forever" on a piece of paper and burned it in my wood stove, here's the picture. :)

Mistakes

A Mistake is made in the dead of night,
As the rain pelts against our souls,
As the milk white moon hides,
As the trees violently sway against the wind,
Where is our sanity?

For we have made a mistake,
Why did I follow you?
For stormy security?
Transparent crystal eyes,
I search for light,
Why did I listen?

Why did I trust and believe
the bitter and broken lies you fed to me?
Why did I follow with such intent?

Where have you gone now?
Where am I?

I drowned in your regrets and mistakes,
You have washed up with a stony heart,
I have washed up with none

Mistake,
I mistook you,
Forced my eyes to see the visions I wanted to
I mistook us for more than a two-letter word on a page,

Mistook power for love,
Darkness for light,
Death for life,

Now I lay in my shallow grave and you in yours,
Now neither of us will live with our discord,
For we are free,
Just mistakes of poetry,

The End

Here's a poem I wrote.
It's dedicated to my mother because she is also a writer and today's her birthday!

The End

The end came swiftly,
Over the smoggy summer skies,
The night was dark and uneventful,
Except for the unanticipated demise,

In the ecru slip of the evening,
The breath of a hot August night,
The stilled air was filled with uncertainties,

The first perfect tear, The first shard of glass,
hit the pavement soundlessly, without remorse,
Without regret,

I once dreamed of all the lives I'd live,
Of all the sorrow I could escape from simply being good,
Of all the dreams that could become reality from
Unwavering hope,

But goodness did not save me from pain,
Unwavering hope could not crush the accuracy,
the precision of fate,
From the evil that crept up the canyon one night,

The end was careless,
Threw away not just bodies but souls and lives,
Threw away beginnings,
Threw away expectations,
Defiled hope and all that could have been,

Blog Reviews #2

Poetic Clarity: This blog is amazing! The author is a brilliant writer and always posts the most original and unusual things. The poems are realistic and can be related to. :)

J'adore: The writing is beautiful and sensory. The writing style is like a stream of consciousness. The images evoked are touchable. There is a lot of painful hope in her work. :)

The Third Eye is The Clearest: This writer presents a lot of really helpful human philosophy. Most philosophy is very complicated but this writer has put it out in very understandable terms. There is no pretentiousness in her writing which is very refreshing. :)

Just In Case-Martin Williams

Here is a poem written by Martin Williams, who is serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison.

Just In Case

"Just in case, the worry-heavy world
Should cast a final backward glance
To whimper at what might have been
Before the horror of trumpets
Blown by indifferent angels
Burns and hails and turns to blood
The bone and breath and form
And I am not this
And you are not that
And for a moment, briefly
We all weep the same tears
And forget the too-many names of God
And all the bitter, biting ways
We clip the wings of each others' prayers

Just in case
I don't see you tomorrow
My friend, my friend
I'll see you again
Where we shall be healed
I'll see you again"

Image is from

Riff #2- Sweet Jennifer

Sweet Jennifer

Her porcelain feet on concrete
Her long, thin fingers clenched into a fist
Lost child? Where are you now?

Hidden behind coal-lined eyes
cigarettes and bleached tangles

Sweet Jennifer
School-girl, innocent, so unknowing of the future

Where is she now?

Broken, tall and pale like a willow
a skeleton, stolen, desperate

Will you save her?

Her lace fabric seamstress dreams
are gone
burned
kerosene dreams

Jennifer was betrayed

When the poor and the kind became the rich and the vicious
When the Hyde killed the Jekyl

Where is the Kiss on the Lips?
The Brooklyn loft?
the ravaged girl, a drug run?

Jennifer, where have you gone?
Did his chocolate voice spoil your naivete?
Forever?

Eyes are a snowy blue
from the medicine in her veins
that could save sweet Jennifer
from growing insane

A haunted smile
loss of innocence
Goodbye, Brooklyn girl
Goldilocks, and Dorothy
The Ruby slippers
Have been shattered.

In the night,
the dark prince stole you
The same way he stole his princess

The same game
Intoxicated with cakes and wine

and for the night you are his

But poor Jennifer
little girl toes, walk on sand
dreamed of the golden boy
sister of the lonely boy

seduced by the criminal
the broken and the used
trapped, mistreated, regretting
the child and the man.....