Black and White

Black – the sky is black.
The clouds swell with rage,
swirling with anger,
the fury unleashed to the earth.

Rain cascades down,
drowning the land,
everything in its path – gone.

The wind tears away at the earth,
like skin ripping from a body.

Debris slices the air,
just like a razor,
destroying lives.

A veil is unearthed,
a veil separating life from death.

They are here,
reaching out,
a hand to hold.

The worst has passed,
the eye is here.

Rain falls from the heavens,
gently washing away the pain,
the broken pieces of life.

White – the sky is white.
The clouds are gone,
the sun shines,
a guiding light, to a peaceful world.

Author's note -- This was a creative writing response for the novel, Lord of the Flies. We were asked to use imagery, like the author, William Golding, and apply it to our writing to describe something horrible, but in a peaceful, awing sort of way. 

Para, Para, Paradise

It's beautiful here. Vibrant, vivid shades of violet fill the sky. The sun hangs low over the water reflecting the sky like watercolor paints as it blends with the blue of the ocean. I feel the warmth of the sand tickle my toes, flow through my veins, and tones of pink light my face. Laying down, the sand surrounds me, a monotone mixture of browns and white. All I can feel now are the sun's rays. With my eyes closed all I can see are swirls and whirls of yellow and orange. I open my eyes; this could be paradise. I see a cloud in the distance. A single gray cloud. The wind picks up, I close my eyes trying to capture my paradise one last time. Rain gently spills on my body. Like paint thinner, the gentle rain turns heavy, within seconds the shades, the monotones, the watercolors are gone. There is only white, a new canvas to start over.

Dark Blue

Dark blue in the sky.
White specs fade to bright white dots.
Dots that soon resemble stars.
I am captivated, awed.

Dark blue takes me away.
The stars take me back.
Back to the beginning.
I am captivated, awed.

Dark blue on your skin.
Your eyes turn to ice.
They see through me.
I am captivated, awed.

Dark blue on the water.
The ice, cold and solid.
It breaks, I plunge.
I am captivated, awed.

Dark blue all around me.
I can see you.
You see through me.
I am captivated, awed.

Dark blue in the sky.
White stars fade to light specs.
Specs that turn the sky to light blue.
I’m captivated, awed.


Author's note - This came to me while I was trying to sleep. I literally got my laptop out and wrote it at two in the morning. I'm not sure where it came from, it must have been my subconcious talking to me, but enjoy!

Author's Note - I would just like to share this quote with you. It really shows the importance of sentence length and what I remember not understanding at first during a seventh grade class when Mr.Johnson was talking about the importance of sentence length, but of course now, being older and a more experienced writer, I understand the importance of sentence length.

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”
— Gary Provost

This I Believe: The Fear of the Night

Author's Note - This is a writing piece that I did for an English speech this year, as a freshmen. The topic was This I Believe, which started as a radio station show in the 1950's. If you want to know more about the actual This I Believe program, visit www.thisibelieve.org. My idea for my speech was to talk about something that was more personal to me and I wanted it to be orginal as well -- no one wants to hear five speeches about "I believe in God", "I believe in the power of love", or "I believe in silence".

I believe in the fear of the night. Not the darkness that the night brings, but the silence — the time when there is nothing to hide my myself from my own screaming thoughts. The time when I cannot escape my demons, for my demons are inside of me. The silence unleashes them into my mind, enabling them to eat away at my soul, at my insecurities, making them weaker than they already are.

I believe that at night, I am at my weakest point. I am alone, vulnerable to anything and everyone. However, sometimes, I find comfort in the loneliness, but nights like that are limited. Most nights I find myself eating away at different thoughts, often keeping me awake for hours on end. During these insomnia filled nights, it’s as if there is a jar of thoughts in my head that has tipped over and all the thoughts have spilled out, scattering into the open and then hiding in every crevice of my brain so that I must stay up just to put all the thoughts back into the jar.

Stephen King once said, “Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” I believe that this true. Surely the monsters and ghosts inside of us our not literal, but metaphorical. The night is the time in which monsters and ghosts come out to get us. My monsters are my insecurities, I call them my demons. My ghosts are my memories, they sneak up on me when I am least expecting it. At times, my haunting memories can bring back a sense of happiness that used to fill me, but at the darkest hours of the night I’m only left alone with a cold nostalgia of what I used to have.

That is the root of my fear of the night – the monsters and ghosts that come out. I don’t want to be alone and vulnerable. I don’t want to go to bed because I’m scared. I’m scared of being alone with my demons and ghosts. I’m scared of letting them inside my head. I’m tired of letting them in my head. I’m tired of the burden of my demons and ghosts. I’m tired of the silence, of the loneliness, of being vulnerable. I’m tired of my fear of the night. But this fear of the night, of the silence and the loneliness that accompanies it, is what has made me who I am.

I have come to believe that this fear is something I need. I believe in this fear for it is something I cannot run from nor can I hide from. The world doesn’t stop spinning, the paradox of night and day is never broken, the monsters don’t fail to come out to get me, and the fear is never ending.

An Eternity in Hell

Author's Notes - This poem was for a partnered -- my partner was Emily Collins -- creative writing piece based of an art piece of our choice.The art piece we had chosen was The Beekeepers and Birdnesters by Pieter the Elder Bruegel,  which is pictured below. The main concept behind this poem was concieved by the idea of the people in the painting being hollow like. If you look at the painting you will notice, number one that it is not colored, simply just black/brown and white, but also notice the people in the painting  have head's that are made of wood, kind of like a tree stump. This gave us the idea of hollowness, also branching off that idea we came up with the idea of the people somewhat relating to Dante's Inferno and it's nine levels of Hell, including the one where the people who had wasted their lives becoming intombed in the ground only with their heads above the ground forced to live an eternity in Hell.

We are hollow,
No faces, no expressions,
We are numb.

Work, work, work,
Our punishment is cruel,
But we are stuck here.

No colors, no life,
Only black and white,
No light to see our souls.

Feeling pain, hurting,
Is better than feeling nothing,
Knowing our soul is wasted, going to hell.

We look, but we don’t see,

We listen, but don’t hear,

We search, but can’t find our purpose.

We live in fear of life after death,

Where will we go?

Is there anything beyond this life?

As we lay numb, we are trapped in this layer.

We are in between two worlds,

Our bodies are empty.

Our minds are in one place,

Our souls in another,

Our hearts far away.

We were created with eyes to see,
Ears to hear,
Hearts to feel.

Then we are fed to the devil,

He carves out our cores,

And fills us with lies.

Injects us with evil,

Soon we are nothing,

Nothing, but a hollowed shell.

A shell that once housed life,

But now it is gone,

We are dead inside.

We waste away,
All the same, every day,
An eternity in hell.

Untitled

Author's Note - I started this about three months ago. At the time things were quite different, it's scary to see how much things can change in the course of three months, but it's just a part of life. I had actually forgotten about this poem, until coming across it in my onenote.. whoops. I didn't intend on finishing it but I ended up making some adaptions to it and now posting it, so enjoy.

The cool water licks my toes,

The water almost illuminated by the sunset,

I remember how we once sat here,

And then every memory of comes back.

I long for your touch, but I know better,

Wishing you were here again never ends well,

And as the tears flow down my face,

I wonder if I ever cross your mind.

I look around me, but see no one,

The bitter taste of loneliness strikes again,

My thoughts drift back to you.