Joy

 

Once Upon a Sky

We look up at the blue sky

So happy, so inviting

Calling us to come play in it’s warming sun rays

The wisps of clouds toying with our imagination

This is what bliss should feel like

We look up at the blue sky

 

We look up at the stormy sky

So grumpy, so powerful

Cracking thunder telling us to stay inside

The pelting raindrops stinging our skin

This is what violent-sorrow should feel like

We look up at the stormy sky

 

We look up at the sunset sky

So calm, so colorful

Unleashing the painter’s pigments into the grandest canvas

The dying hues flickering across our faces

This is what bitter-sweet memories should feel like

We look up at the sunset sky

 

We look up at the snowy sky

So heavy, so wise

Blanketing the world in a quiet one-ness

The snowflakes catch in our hair

This is what grief should feel like

We look up at the snowy sky

 

I look up at the sky

How familiar and yet forgotten

The once blue sky turned stormy

The once stormy sky turned sunset

The once sunset sky turned snowy

But that does not seem to matter anymore

The sky will always be different without you here

The sky itself did not change

but I did

 

The blue sky will never be as inviting without you

The stormy sky will never be as powerful without you

The sunset sky will never be as colorful without you

The snowy sky will never be as wise without you

 

Your blue, sky blue, eyes will follow me from the heavens

I will never be the same without you.

---

 

Point of view from Violet Markey or ‘Ultraviolet Remarkey-able’ as Finch likes to call her in All the Bright Places. I finished the book on Wednesday, and though it was not my favorite, but it was very enjoyable.

 

Didn’t Know

She didn’t know the world broke

She didn’t know the world shattered

shattered like her heart would be.

She didn’t know who broke the world

Who knew the world could be so fragile?

Pixabay/user:geralt

He Brought Her Roses

Every day he would bring her roses. He would set his alarm for 3:30 AM to get to her cello practice room before she did. She was dedicated, two and a half hour practices before school. Those hours of practice were what life should be all about. Life should be struggles to hit the right cord, but the happiness that follows when your part of the symphony is perfect. She was what life should be.

He would slip into her soundproof room and carefully place a single rose on her sheet music. The roses would differ every time, but without fail there would always be a fragile flower waiting when the elegant cellist would come to make the world a little bit better, a little bit brighter. The roses would be passionate dark red like the dress she wore when he first saw her at her symphony. Or the rose would be white as the snow on her birthday in January. He would always feel elated when he dropped the pink rose on her stand because it was soft and sweet like he imagined her lips to be. The yellow rose would remind him of couples walking in the summer time and the girls wearing their sundresses and how he wanted that to be him and the cellist. The peachy-orange was like the sunrise he watched as she played.

He must have spent thousands on roses for a girl he never dared talk to. He must have lost countless hours of sleep thinking about the one smile she had ever cast on him. He must have gone crazy for the girl to stop his college education so he could watch her every move. He must have.

She would laugh when ice cream dribbled down her chin in the hot hot summer time. He wanted to be the one to make her laugh like that. She would dance like no one was watching at the clubs. He wanted to dance with her like that. She would care enough to help the homeless person outside her daily coffee shop to buy them a warm drink. He wanted that caring towards him.

He fell in love with the girl who never knew his name.

One day she never came to practice. He still dropped off her rose like he always did and waited. The rose was still there when he came to give the rose of next day. She had never missed two days of practice in a row. Music was her life; her music was his life. He continued with his normal routine and went to her apartment. She was not home, but her car was still in the parking lot.

He had never gone into her apartment before, but he had to find out what was wrong. He had to find out what had made life wrong. He slowly turned her doorknob like so many times he wanted to, but could not put his courage where his heart was. Unlocked. She should not leave her door unlocked in a city like this, who knows what kind of creepers could break in. The door swung open and her apartment was just like he imagined. Nothing out of place. Bright colors. Modern furniture. Photos of friends on the fridge. A worn looking copy of The Great Gatsby opened to page 95 was in her chair.

“There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams – not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”

Her bed looked just like her personality with a yellow sunflower comforter. So welcoming. Except for what lay on it. Towards the upper-middle was a rather large crimson stain. A fresh crimson stain. With eyes open to see the stars twinkle happily at her music laid the cellist with a bullet to her brunette head. Gun in her right hand and her left pointing to a note. Of course. Always leave a note.

They said I was not talented enough. They said I was not good enough. They said to move on and live a real life. If someone is reading this, then that means I chose a real death. I was actually cut from the program months ago, but they let me still use their practice rooms until I moved. Music was my life, my whole life and I do not know what that means without Juilliard giving me a chance. I think I would have ended it right there if not for the roses. Ever since I came to the school there has been roses on my stand each morning, but I came to value them more and more when no one seemed to value me. They would remind me of better times, brighter times. These past few months, I saved each and every one. But roses are not enough. Life got too disappointing and roses could not fill that void.

He walked out. He left everything the way it was for the police and her family. Except for the note. The note was for him. The note was because of him.

He continued to bring roses. He brought roses for months afterwards. A new rose was placed at her forgotten stand even when her apartment was cleaned out. Even though years went by as did the people who used that room, no one disturbed the stand with thousands of roses left in the corner. On the day of his retirement party for working at the school as a janitor for forty years, he placed her last rose.

The cellist had stolen his heart as she had stolen her life.

 

 

Inspired by the image Pixabay/user:Fotocitizen

 

Just Be Blunt: A Rondeau

Please, please just be blunt,

Don’t make me have to hunt

Pecking at every word, so indecisive.

Each issue or option, you are passive,

Neither loud nor silent.

 

I’m not a nag, but please adjustment

No hand to hold, be independent

Yes or no, but not compulsive

Please, please just be blunt.

 

Don’t string me along, then to banishment.

I need an answer, now, up front.

Turn your back on being vague or elusive

I’m no Sherlock Holmes, being deductive

Up or down, day or night, sink or buoyant

Please, please just be blunt.

 

Pixabay/user:geralt

The Ice Queen

The Ice Queen

she unfroze today

she thawed today

she melted today.

Pixabay/user:Fotocitizen

Throwing Stars

The world is just too much right now

Too big

Too confusing

Too demanding

Too much

But tears seem like wasted energy

Deep breathes only deflate my lungs

Tingling energy courses through me with no where to go

A heaviness is inside my chest,

a black hole to all of me.

Too many thoughts

Too many thoughts free-flying through my mind

A million ringed circus

I am clinging to a lost hope in the middle of my hurricane of thoughts

The world is shoving throwing stars down my throat

Cutting me

Shattering me

Making me crumble

I have always been a marble statue

So perfectly  imperfectly molded

But the world just

chipped

               chipped

                            chipped

                                        chipped away until the day I crumbled

Dear God

form me back together how you think is best

Use your Almighty hands to hold me up against the wind whipping world

Turn my anxiety into Kintsugi as the Japanese do

Take away the throwing stars

and make them into shooting stars

The kind that make the citizens of your planet

ohhh and ahhhh

The kind that is hoped on, wished on

Dear God

make the throwing stars that are shoved down my throat into

shooting stars that I can hope on, wish on.

Dear God this I pray.

 

Pixabay/user:Unsplash

Cancer Saved Her Life

Cancer: it destroys organs, normal lives, families. This disease, that we as a society know all too well, starts in our cells and ends with one less person in the annual Christmas card. Dealing with cancer is consumed with Chemo, hair loss, and white blood cell counts, but in some cases there is something more than just mutating cells.

I was four when my Grandma was first diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Her whole adult life, she was plagued with depression, only seeing the incorrect brush strokes of life’s big picture. But cancer changed her. I grew up seeing my grandmother enduring hours of chemotherapy and starting to regularly attend my church. With hair loss came losing the importance of utmost perfection in her life. When counting white blood cells, blessings were counted too. On her long and twisted journey to becoming a better person, the cancer was always there, lurking. But I think that was what pushed her forward.

Cancer often ends lives, but with my Grandma’s diagnosis she started a new one. Sometimes the darkest moments in our lives are the ones most needed. Cancer is horrible, scary and degrading, but as my Grandma used to always say ‘you can either laugh or cry’ and she laughed with a passion. This depressing, distressing, dismal disease can be either heartbreaking or heart-making.

Her journey ended, but she was glad to be able to have nine years to see her three granddaughters grow up and have the time to grow in her faith. When life sentences us with a last chance, it can be viewed as a second chance.

---

Published in Creative Communications Spring 2016 Essay Contest

 

How Many Times

How many times do I thank God for you?

How many times do I wish I could be with you?

How many times do I stand in awe of you?

How many times do I wish I said I love you?

How many times do I regret my harsh words?

How many times do I apologize and wish it was out loud to you?

How many times do I realize that you are too good for me?

How many times do I wish I said you are beautiful?

How many times do I wish I said how much I admire you?

How many times do I stand in awe that you are mine?

How many times do I wish I thanked you?

How many times do I want to never leave you?

How many times do I wish I said what you mean to me?

Never enough

Me: Year One

365 days ago I logged onto WordPress for the first time and willing to take those first few keystrokes literally changed my life. This being my 225th post, I figured I would break through the computer screen talk/type a bit about my blogging experience.

By blogging I pushed myself to become a better writer; not only that but a better person too. Creating this blog has lead to new friends, new or deeper ideals, various awards, and expressing myself in ways that my daily journal could not.

I think some of the things that really changed my process and style of writing was participating in NaPoWriMo which was extremely challenging as I made a foolish goal of trying – succeeding mind you – for 50 posts instead of the required 30. I learned how to look at the world around me for inspiration whereas I had always looked into myself. By doing this and having recently re-dedicated my life to Christ near this time I began to see through my writing a better outlook on life I was developing.

A huge contributor to growing my blog size was looking for similar interested people on WordPress. Just by my sheer likes and followers I have, am I amazed that enough people like my thoughts on the world in the way I express them. I wrote about this before, but I find it so interesting that I learn of a person’s deepest emotions without ever knowing there name or anything about them beyond their ‘About Me’ page. I have found people who I would call true friends that live hundreds to thousands of miles away from me!

I do not believe starting a blog could have been as beneficial than when I started it. It helped me figure out questions and answer those questions in a constructive way and something to look back on to see my thoughts again. As I have said time and time again, I found who I am, but also what I stand for.

As you can probably see from my right side-bar I have had the honor to be published twice – hopefully soon I can make that a third time – and currently awaiting to see if one of my plays can be performed.

As of today, I have been writing everyday from 641 days straight with only missing two days of forgetting to write. Sometimes I hand-write for four hours and other times only ten minutes, but it always helps to put my day and feelings about it in colorful pen.

Although I do not talk a lot about it on this blog, even though part of my user name is the title, I am writing a novel called Varietal. Oh I know most people say they are, but it never goes anywhere, but I prefer to be an outlier in that generalization. My novel is currently 48,000 words which roughly transfers to about 185 pages in a book. I am no where near finished, but I had to start all over and scrape it all this summer. It is the exact opposite of what I normally read, but something that I love to write. The best way to describe it is novel driven by theme with touches of political satire.

I have only one regret about this blog. My username/pen-name. I think Marvel Varietal was a good fit in the beginning of my blog, but not for the current writer I am. Sadly, it is very hard to change once I am this far. I would want my username to be CallMeDearest. Because of Matthew 25: 21 “His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” I want to be God’s faithful servant, his Dearest servant. Another reason is because a great mentor and friend calls me ‘dearest’ followed by my first name.

My absolute favorite quote about writing is written by Tahereh Mafi, “We write every day, we fight every day, we think and scheme and dream a little dream every day. Manuscripts pile up in the kitchen sink, run-on sentences dangle around our necks. We plant purple prose in our gardens and snip the adverbs only to thread them in our hair. We write with no guarantees, no certainties, no promises of what might come and we do it anyway. This is who we are.”

So that is about my two cents on my 365 days of blogging! 🙂

I recently wrote a bit about my writing for another blog and I thought I would share part of it here:

I am floating in a river of words, letting the current carry me where the individual droplets think my expression should go. I create tributaries into new styles when trying new forms, but the river has remained in the same direction. Writing not only helps me find who I am, but what I stand for. Certain forms and ideas cling closer to my pen such as poetry and short stories. I drink in my words and let them reconcile my thoughts. The seemingly never-ending pelting drops of life rain down on me and writing enables me to spray my turmoils into water bottles, fish bowls and swimming pools. I have found my specific current, my writer’s voice is forging a picturesque straightforward concept and then finding a crack to exploit in it. As I look back, I see how fragile and vulnerable my creations were, how, that life-giving sustenance slipped through my fingers. However, I am also proud to see that those pieces were put to use to help me get to this point in my river.

Wondering what is around the next river bend,

Marvel Varietal