Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time,

I used to dream in Storybook rhymes.

That told of a Prince that would come sweep me off my feet

He’d stand under my window and throw rocks for me.

But that’s just it, it was a childhood dream

Those thoughts and feelings are long gone

And just like chess, I became a pawn

In the game of loveless love my parents had played.

I was on the front lines and I suffered the pain.

The front lines: where their weapons were words;

Their words were filled with venom the players felt their opponent deserved

And I sat as a child and merely observed.

And through my sufferings I learned to deal,

By making a way that I would never need to heal.

Once upon a time,

I closed off this heart of mine,

When I learned that there’s no such thing as storybook love,

No such thing as the fairy tales I would dream of.

I kept it secure and in doing so I became distant and lost

But I did it so I would endure, I made a promise to myself, and on my heart I traced a cross.

But Once Upon a Time

I was a little girl

And I lived inside a Beautiful, Stained Glass World.

Once Upon a Time

My Parents were in love

They Lived A Happily Ever After

And said “I Do” under the church rafters

I believed in love at first sight,

Along with unicorns, and fairies and evil dragons in flight.

I remembered to always look for the silver line,

But that was only once upon a time…

Once upon a time, my parents faced a steep Incline with a cliff on their side,

They were ready to jump and forget about me, myself, and I.

If they had the love that I had learned of,

Why were they so ready to give up?

There was supposed to be a light at the end of the tunnel

But the dark just kept dragging on.

What was I supposed to do when they wouldn’t live as one?

And they would tell me that they were still in love?

I would learn to live with how my life became what it is today,

I thought the war had come to an end but I realized it still rages within,

Because even though it’s a few years later

I now see I’ve hit the iceberg, and like the Titanic I’ve sank into a frozen danger.

The waters froze my heart over leaving no room for the warmth and love of another.

This leaves me to wish I could return to my once upon a time,

Where everything around me was part of a soft lie

Leading me to believe that everyone’s life story started with the words “Once upon a time…”

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This piece shows creativity in that I relate the feelings a child experiences during a rough and choppy divorce between their parents which creates a custody battle over the child to common knowledge, games, and history which makes it less hard for the audience to sympathize with. I find it engaging in that it rhymes almost as if it is a twisted "storybook rhyme" and that, for this generation especially, it can be very easily related to the reader's life events if their parent had a divorce. This shows growth in that I hadn't written a poem before where I actually said what life event I was writing of; it's not hidden under a veil of ambiguity that is known as an allegory.

Unnamed

I have insecurities, I can’t help it.

They creep and burrow into my brain like rodents

Then they pop up like whack-a-moles

Only I don’t have a hammer to whack them away;

They just appear and then they remain there

A vicious tease and annoyance.

They forced me into a corner of self-doubt and low esteem.

In this corner, the darkness closed in around me:

It was attracted to the negative ions I had exuded

In my solution of suppressive depression

And the salt bridge formed by my overwhelming tears.

How’s that for the perceived lack of chemistry

Especially when it had come to others?

Eventually I found the surrounding darkness had become comforting

It had welcomed me when it seemed no one else would:

I could be left alone there and have no one question me.

I thought I enjoyed my solitude.

She’s hidden herself from all those around her

And nobody’s found her

Nobody’s even tried.

She remains in the dark because nobody’s saved her,

Nor will they ever;

She is the one they have chosen to forget:

To leave without regret.

She’s left in the dark;

She feels without purpose,

She feels worthless.

She is alone.

In the blackness,

She’s completely defenseless

To her thoughts and her emotions,

Her tears formed an ocean.

The ocean surrounded her;

The ocean drowned her;

Then finally she died

Because all who have claimed to love her had left her behind.

Only when I couldn’t take the stress anymore did I go off;

I was a ticking time bomb.

Stress was my biological trigger,

It flowed through my veins waiting for its signal

In its unforeseeable detonation

I blundered ahead into the mountain of books.

I thought I could handle all that had come with the aspirations I had allotted myself.

Then I noticed that I could see myself, alone and weak:

Unable to succeed at anything.

Her thoughts tore into her,

They all saw the “reality” so they concurred:

They saw a weakling girl with scraggly arms

who had no strength to climb up the mountain, she had no zeal.

Nobody saw her because she lacked an aesthetic appeal,

Her “lacks” automatically made you see that she

Could never be anything she wished she could amount to be.

She didn’t have confidence in herself so nobody else ever could

And she never believed that someday someone would.

When somebody finally recognized and loved her

She found the strength she needed to conquer

Everything except the darkness

That hounded her with her state of being worthless.

She tried her hardest to push her way out

But she could not overcome the seething doubt.

I took time away, I just needed to breathe

This only worsened the situation though.

Like a spark thrown into a room full of gas,

Everything blew back in my face and I had no idea what to do.

I cried every night and couldn’t answer simple questions.

I holed myself away in my room and did nothing but despair

In my eternal gloom. But then a light was shed

And it’s lead me to be who I am today

Even though the feeling still comes back to haunt me

I have a release which is what I needed to begin with,

Something to ride me through my fall and lessen the impact it had on my surroundings.

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This piece shows creativity in that I haven't written a poem before where I've jumped from one perspective to another, both being the speaker and the outsider looking in on the speaker is quite interesting. I find it engaging in that it is disorienting to read the back and forth of the two perspectives which is what I was aiming for. I wanted the reader to be put in a place where they felt confused and needed to go back and run back through what they read in order to better grasp my tone and the overall feelings behind the poem. This shows growth in that I'm using the two separate perspectives to aid the underlying meaning and tone of the piece.

Hylophobia

Rushing out the back door Cassidy could only think of now having to take the shortcut to school. The one that cut across the field behind her neighbors’ backyards as well as hers and to a narrow path through a small section of forest that led to the school. Her eyes scanned the tree line across the large field that seemed to be long-forgotten in the blinding gray light of the cloudy morning. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary but still her heart began beating faster with each crunch made by the frozen dew, and brilliantly colored fall leaves beneath her feet. Along with the slight murmur from the trees, her mother’s voice rang in her ears, warm but anxiety ridden, “As a girl there are certain things you should avoid… Never be alone, and never be out of the earshot of others.” The only thing she could picture when her mother’s voice played through her was the wooded area around the field: those densely packed branches abruptly stopping at the edge of the large expanse of grass that remained that beautiful emerald green all year long. She could only imagine being alone at the edge of the field only to be snatched up, and swallowed whole by those trees. So she had become accustomed to walking to school with her friend Jesse, but recently Jesse had contracted the flu from going out in the storm to sneak off to a party.
As Cassidy crossed the field the world felt void of life, only deepening her sense of fear, the dread was twisting and writhing further through her veins, the danger infecting every cell in her blood. As she approached the path, she grabbed the straps of her backpack as though they’d hold her to the ground, as though they’d prevent the forest from consuming her. Almost like it was protection from the darkness within the forest. As her foot stepped onto the path she heard a noise nearby. It sounded like the old floorboards in her hallway at home, that slow moaning creek of something moving which was once still. Almost like the forest had waited for her and began to awaken in order to shoot its eerie vines up through the ground and pull her away into the brush screaming bloody murder. So she began to run.
       She ran past what seemed like hundreds of maple trees which had faded into a dull autumn gold. She jumped and nearly screamed at every rustle she heard. She tripped and fell on every little black and grey rock that had been hidden beneath the carpet of leaves and moss. She didn’t stop for anything. She didn’t stop to rest. She didn’t stop to nurse her bloodied hands and scraped knees. She didn’t stop to notice the lush plant life or how peculiar it was for the leaves to remain on said plant life so late in the fall. She didn’t stop when she stumbled up and nearly fell on the incline at the slight curve in the tight path. She didn’t stop when the low hanging branches pulled at her hair. She didn’t stop when the overgrown bush clawed at her legs through her pants.
The forest seemed to be closing in around her. It grabbed at her calf muscles. It grazed her thighs. It tugged on and tore up her clothes. It gripped her arms with such vicious determination it ripped through her heavy jacket. The forest had come to life to engulf Cassidy just as she’d imagined: just as she had feared. It dragged her down to the cold, unforgiving ground. It hauled her into the brush. It spread fingerlike roots and vines over her body. They twisted around her. They began to cocoon her. They shot up from the ground and bound her to the forest floor. The moss slowly began growing on her skin. She gasped for breath. She gasped for that moist life giving air. It was thick with mold spores and that smell of earthworms and soil. She could taste it. Her palette became thicker with its taste with each dying breath. She screamed as the plants began to shoot up through her skin. She shrieked at the pain. She wailed as the merciless forest tried to bulldoze it’s vines into her ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, suffocating her. It tried to thrust itself back through her and into the earth starting with the easiest points of access.
  She desperately tried to cling to life all the while crying out for the help she knew would never come. She was praying to a god whom she’d never even worshipped for a rescue. She needed someone, anyone, to hear her anxious cries. She knew it was all hopeless though. Her calls were drowned out by the wall of trees that surrounded her. Her mind flashed images of her family, her friends, her short and sweet life. She wondered if they’d ever find her, and if anybody would even realize she was gone. She wondered what would they place in an empty grave as a memorial to the life she had lived. She pondered if anybody would question how she came to pass. All the while knowing nobody would ever know the truth of her horrific end.
Warm tears were escaping her eyes as she began sinking into the immense vegetation around her, the plant life that was no longer just plants but apart of her as well. She felt the bugs crawling on her skin and gnawing at what was left of her. They were feeding off what life she still had.
Along with the slowing heartbeat within her, Cassidy heard the earth moving, and the forest symphonizing at her capture. The trees reverberated loudly with the sound of triumph over her, as though they had awaited the day she would be alone. They vibrated in the harmony of her mutilation and destruction as though it had been plotted long ago. The groaning of the trees sounding joyous at their victory, reaping the reward of having succeeded. Her body was a trophy to the wildlife of the forest.
As she was succumbing to forest, her limbs became limp. Her drive to fight was gone. Her muscles ached. Her wounds burned with the dirt that was enveloping her. Her breath staggered then shallowed. Her heart began skipping beats. She closed her eyes and tried to cherish her last moments. The darkness entombed her. She became one with the forest, never to be found.
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This piece shows creativity in that I had never written anything like this before. I hadn't written something so dark, and creepy. The setting is the antagonist, rather than a person, which I feel will draw a reader into the piece because it plays off the relatable fears of being alone, and being forgotten. There is also the title, hylophobia, or fear of the forest. It is engaging in the fact that it is unique, it uses repetitive images (almost like a heartbeat) to really pound the disturbing images into the reader's eye, as well as it plays off of fears. This shows growth in that as I had stated before, I hadn't ever used the setting as the antagonist before in my writing.

Reflection

Why, once again I question myself, do I hide behind this mirror? Why do I not break through it? Perhaps I am not strong enough. I may not be strong enough, especially when I need to be: especially when I need the strength to rise to my feet and set the entire world back in its rightful place. It is now, when I need to get up off the ground where I lay, the ground that I fell to, to fix this mutated world, this altered state of reality, that I cannot find the strength.  Why has all I’d ever hoped and loved left me with nothing to turn to for empowerment, for inspiration? The well of life I drank from runs dry as the spiderlike night finishes entombing the world in her web of black sky holding dewdrops of sparkling stars. The breaths I take become increasingly shallow, and I feel the cold of the night settle in my skin and bones, or maybe I should say my glass and my frame for I’ve become nothing more than what I’ve reduced myself to, a mirror: a shining reflection of everything a viewer would like to see, a lie, a falsified image cropped to fit into the frame of a pretty little body. All the viewer needs to say is the timeless words “Mirror, mirror on the wall…”

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This piece shows creativity in that I tried to compare the night sky to a spider’s web, I really liked the analogy and how it was unique in that I had never used it before in other pieces of writing. The piece I posted is only a fragment of a larger piece I’m attempting to write and yet I still find it to be engaging; it speaks I first person, which I feel will draw a reader into the piece because the narrator is not self-empowered and righteous but is in fact self-conscious, and speaks to the reader to find strength. It is also engaging in the fact that, I’m sure, people can relate to the narrator feeling like a mirror, only reflecting what people want to see. This shows growth in that I’m trying to expand upon my ability to write in prose versus writing poetry.

Star-Crossed - Final Draft: 3/4/12

As silent as we could mange, we snuck out past the night guards who had always patrolled the castle walls. It is strange to think that they hadn’t recognized the princess had gone missing. I had always wondered what it would have been like outside of the inside I had spent my life committing to memory. You were afraid, no, terrified my father, the king, would discover you stealing me away into the night. I wasn’t, I guess in some strange way I had wanted us to be caught by one of the harsh, husky guards; I guess I liked the danger and the potential that my father could realize I’m more than an innocent wallflower destined for nothing more than waving to her subjects and saving our land from an enemy land through a kingdom-merging betrothal. I liked that you exposed me to the feeling that I actually was more than what the king had planned for me. So in the same sense I wanted to keep you around and I wanted to be caught, but that would’ve had taken you away from me. Because though I know that our motives were innocent and pure, my father would have thought you were kidnapping me for untold ulterior purposes like that of illicit acts. I know the truth though; we began our adventure with the intentions of going stargazing.
We met one evening when you had come to deliver a message to me from my mother, the queen. You found me amongst a pile of books within my tutor’s study, surrounded by lush tapestries sewn with the land’s finest threads. The draping fabrics depicted my family’s rich history, of which, I had grown largely unimpressed having been preached of it every day my tutor gave a history lesson; as if we’re of the only importance in all of Scotland’s history. Nevertheless, when you found me I was reading of the stars and attempting to view them through one of the clearer stained glass windows, obviously having been an amateur I hadn’t realized that it was next to impossible to isolate constellations through glass which does nothing but distort and hide what lies on the other side in an effort to allow a viewer to see the broken image.. You had sensed my inexperience because you too had found a love in astronomy, and pointed out that the stars are hard to see within the palace. You invited me to come with you one night to truly get a look at the night sky. I had agreed, and looking back I see I had made a naïve and dangerous decision in trusting a young man who was but a stranger to me, and it has all but broken my heart, you have all but broken my heart.
      I had agreed to come join you beneath a sea of stars visible only outside the wall of the only place I’ve ever seen. We held hands as you guided me to a small expanse of grass within an opening of the castle’s surrounding forestry. I felt as though we held hands like lovers, unknowingly gravitating into the other’s atmosphere only to brush fingers so slightly and shyly before lacing them together: our fingers forming some easily broken bond one would so desperately wish to keep strong.
That night as we watched the stars, I can recall looking to you and watching in shameless admiration as you became lost, gazing dreamily into the sky. I followed the line of your eyes and soaked in the beauty of the vast night sky that hung above Scotland; it was truly mesmerizing. I lowered myself to the ground to lie upon the grass and I remember you soon followed suit, lying next to me. You folded your arms beneath your head and let out a loud sigh. You always came here at night when there was a clear sky and the weather was warm, but you were always alone. You had never brought a girl, let alone the princess, there before. You felt the building desire bubble up inside of you like volcanic magma wishing to explode out in a fiery eruption as you listened to my quiet, feminine breathing and small movements as I adjusted myself from time to time on the grass next to you.
I remember that I had so desperately wished we were of the same life because I had longed to be you lover. You were too much of a gentleman to make the move, though your eyes were always on me when I wasn’t looking: drinking me in like the finest wine on the eve of Scotland’s greatest holiday. And I was too delicate an untouched flower to risk a break before the marriage to her betrothed even when I was tempted with the urge to be with you. I longed to kiss your perfect lips: so thin and so pink that they almost matched the tone of your skin because you were always naturally flushed.
      I can call to mind when I daringly brought my eyes to meet yours hoping you would see the yearning passion that had lain just behind the surface of my stare. I looked deep into your pupils but you were too chivalrous to act upon what you had seen, and felt, because I saw it there within your stare as well. I can bring to memory twirling my long, strawberry blonde locks around my finger and seductively biting my lower lip in a ploy to make you take the next step. I remember batting my thick lashes and finding no return gesture but the look in your eyes that sorrowfully said that we could not because you so desperately wished we could go further. You were terrified of my father and of the fallout that would happen as a result of the indiscretion that could have occurred that night.
      I wished we could have been lovers. I wished life would have allowed for us to have become an entangled mess beneath the constellations that hung above us. I wished we could kiss and run our fingers through each other’s hair. I wished we could flirtatiously grab at each other and take off our clothes and I wished it wouldn’t have been frowned upon to have such thoughts. I wished I were less than a princess and that you were more than a poor pageboy for the king all at the same time.
      At the height of your lust, you couldn’t take it anymore so you stood abruptly. You knew if we stayed any longer things would escalate into something neither of us could control, and something both of us would immediately regret, especially you, you would suffer the most of the consequences. When you stood, you turned yourself to face the direction of castle, toward the path which we came. You choked out the words that this was forbidden and that we must go back. You said that you had thought through the “what ifs” but we could not be: no matter what would happen it would end in heartbreak or disaster. So we walked slowly back to the castle and the silence was deafening. I’ve come to see that words are a human’s greatest weapon against the heart, they are comparable to a snake’s poison, but it is the absence of words that fill silence, and they are the words that sting the most. When we arrived at the door which led to my room, you stopped. You grabbed my hand, then like a butterfly lands, you sadly and delicately placed a soft kiss upon the top of my hand and sorrowfully spoke but three words; “I’m sorry milady.”