Monday Morose Miscellany

It’s 11:59. There’s a ringing in her ear. Ring in the new year as they say. Or is it a new day? They’re close enough anyway, and when the minute turns over it will be an ending and she needs that ending like she needs the ringing to drown out the endless voices and start again in silence. It’s silent now, late at night, home alone. She vaguely wonders if she remembered to lock the door, but it’s loud inside, hammering painfully against her skull, making her squirm and look at the clock for the numbers to turn. To end.

 

 

 

Drums.

Arouse a building nausea.

They lost themselves in mind’s recesses and won’t stop echoing.

Sleep

It’s a dream that filters behind the eyes

Celebrated with fireworks, red and gold.

Blink

But not too much or your eyes will get stuck

And you’ll be lost inside your eyelids forever

Empty

Is a wish

For an empty mind and empty body

Filled only with drums.

 

 

 

 

Delicate white branch

Laced with the snowfall of night

Vanished in the sun

 

 

 

She begins with herself, always. In the present tense and first person, she is always the crystal to focus the light of her own mind. A turning inwards, a breath. Who am I today? She wondered, echoing the calls of a thousand young children across the globe. Why today? Came the teenage call, yearning for purpose. When can I rest? She asked, as she suddenly felt her body grow old. She begins with herself but herself is a multitude and she cannot end until she has touched them all. Her crystal has grown diffuse. She cannot see in the gloom.

 

 

 

I’m sitting in a cube

Always in cubes

Open air is foreign, and so I pack my

Spaces into boxes

Filled with boxes

To pretend I take up space.

The boxes are sharp, all straight lines and corners

So I went myself into curves

And ooze into empty places

Hoping the edges don’t cut

I don’t fill the boxes

I can’t feel the boxes alone

It’s easier to pretend I’m not here at all.

Experiments in Fiction

Ok, so it has been a very very very long time since I’ve written much of any fiction at all. Feel free to skip this post now that you know that because I promise it’s not gonna be very good. I’m mostly looking for some feedback on my drabble about truth, but any other thoughts are welcome (please be nice, I’m very sensitive about my fiction. If you hate it, at least be constructive).  So anyway, here are a few things I’ve written in the past couple of days. Let me know what you think.

 

Drabble 1: Beginnings

Blank pages always made her anxious. Some days she would scribble a line of nonsense above the whiteness, simply to feel she wasn’t staring into the void. Too much white gave her headaches. Today she opened her journal, holding her fountain pen between her teeth, and looked intently at the page. White. Black lines traversing. Instead of putting pen to paper, she gently reached her hand out and touched the page, a single finger following the straight lines across it. With a sigh, she laid her pen down and placed her palm against the page, breathing deeply as she disappeared.

 

Drabble 2: Truth

She sat down again, on her bed. It was time to begin searching, again. Things were gnawing at her, as they always did, and she would answer, again and again. She whittled herself away trying to find it, and again she could not. Without it she would not bother waking up tomorrow, she told herself again. But again she knew that was a lie. Yesterday she had not eaten, and again today she would not. She wouldn’t let herself again until she found what she was looking for. Truth evaded her when all she wanted was to have certainty again.

 

Poem: Purpose

I am a thresher

What is my purpose?

I have talents

I awaken each morning and work without fail

quickly

mowing down the tall crops

I am efficient

I work endlessly.

Do I arise each morning for this?

I have failures

I do not rest

I cannot stop

Do I sleep each night dwelling on how to improve?

My task goes on

There will be another season and another

Or is my revolution to put down my scythe and lie in the grass?