Disenchantment

It is a feeling like disenchantment,

like the cleanup crew at Times Square shuffling

          celebrators away minutes after midnight to sweep up the ticker-tape.

Like drinking glitter and dancing until it digests;

          your whole body is filled with sparkle before settling into your toes,

like pulling the plug of a lava lamp

or setting the snow globe down after shaking it and watching everything hit the base

          —how the porches darken one by one as the Christmas lights disappear

and the emptiness of the living room when the tree is taken down

and waiting days to kiss and feeling nothing when you do

and each year realizing the carnival gets less

and less fun and more

and more of a headache.

And when your little sister Amy asks you why you aren’t drinking

          your Coconut Cocoa tea—

she pours a cup for Raggedy Ann—you take a sip and taste nothing

And the first time you watch Peter Pan without joining in on the chorus of, “I believe in fairies.”

          And if you feel like the last day of summer

          you’ve fallen out of love.

What do you plan on doing with your writing? I'm surprised you're not famous yet.

My plans right now are just to hopefully keep writing and improving. College keeps me busy.

I do have some ideas/plans/rough drafts for novels though! I can’t really imagine getting published right now. But, fingers crossed! One day!

Your writings are amazing! they truley are beautiful<3 What's your inspiration?

Thanks!

http://operahousegirl.tumblr.com/tagged/inspiration

I'm sure you get this all of the time, but I just want to say that you're a wonderful poet!

Hey thanks! (:

Nossa, eu amei o seu blog, muto lindo ^^

Muito obrigada!

Ruby-Throated Roots

The first day of gym class we measured heart rates.
I told Miss Patricia I was a hummingbird
reaching twelve-hundred sixty beats per minute.

I was ruby-throated running my fingers
along the skin of my neck
feeling for the prickly start of feathers
like a boy searching for the first signs of manhood

and Anna, who worked at Lucy’s Diner
where I always ordered a vanilla, never chocolate,
(like Kasey and Michael and Luke ordered) milkshake
told me I was a hummingbird because I never settled down
but I knew it was because I could fly backwards—
and all the Cardinals,
     and Blue Jays, and Siskins
             and Tufted Titmouses and Finches and
                        Downy Woodpeckers,
and even Eagles with a wingspan of 90 inches
cannot fly sideways and backwards,
only straight.

But I can sit in sheer space and watch the world around me
or travel back and retrace my steps.
Because returning to your roots is not only a quest in Skyrim,
but is necessary to understand who you are.

Popsicle Nostalgia

Remember those Spider-Man popsicles with the gumballs?
I wish I had one of your face so
I could chew your eyes out.

But then again, you’d be one of those cheap Fla-Vor-Ice freezer pops
in a pack of 75 sold in bulk at Sam’s Club.
They used to hand them out to us on Field Day
at Liberty Elementary School half-frozen, half-sticky sweet
liquid that choked the back of your throat
and it always rained at the end of the day.

We ate Gushers by the cyan colored pool sides
and kissed toads who turned into boys
who weren’t very good at kissing back.

I thought I could chew you into something soft
and blow you away.
But you weren’t easily impressed.

Summer’s sunblock left us cold.

You went swimming in your shorts
I went swimming in my bra
and then we went swimming in nothing at all.

But remember Fruit by the Foot shoved into our mouths
whole?
Sparkers looked like your eyes I wanted to kiss
and burn my lips.

I’ll tie myself to a bottle rocket—
say I made it to the moon and left you in a gumball machine
—only twenty-five cents.

I really love ur writing! where do u get ur motivation and inspiration? how do u overcome Writer's Block...?

This gets asked a lot, so I usually just direct people: here! (:

            As for overcoming writer’s block, there really is no definite cure for this one. From my own experience, I have three ways to unclog the gears in my head without ramming a pencil in my ear out of desperation.

            The first would be (and I know you don’t want to hear this) to just keep writing. I know writing becomes an absolute chore when you can think of nothing but horrible ideas, but honestly, the fastest way to be hit by inspiration is by being in the act of writing—even if you have nothing good to say. I listed this advice first, because many people mistake “writer’s block” with not finding the “perfect words” to say what they want to. This is wrong! When you’re writing a poem, or especially a story, it’s best to get whatever is in your head down as fast as possible with as much detail as possible even if it sounds like a spastic kindergartener wrote it.

            Writing is meant to be revised: F. Scott Fitzgerald did not immediately write paragraphs of smooth, angelic sounding prose; he rewrote much of Gatsby until it possessed its current fluency and eloquence and became the masterpiece it is today.

            A second way to overcome this annoying block would be to engage in creative exercises/prompts. If you’ve ever taken a creative writing course or workshop, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, you can find many exercises online if you aren’t inclined to spend heaps of money on writing-help books, such as Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway (which I have read and can tell you it is very helpful and includes many lovely and inspiring whole short stories by various authors), or even something cheap such as, 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts by Bryan Cohen (Which, I haven’t read, so I cannot vouch for it. But it’s $3 on Amazon, so really, why not?).

            For poetry, this is a really great exercise. Try to incorporate each of the 20 things listed in one poem. I’ve found it almost always yields interesting results.

             Creative writing prompts for fiction online are a bit trickier—most of them are stupid. I’ve found some that suggest starting off with a meteor hitting the earth—tacky and overused. Or titling your story “The Baby Dragon.” These ideas will probably never produce publishable results—but hey, sometimes you need to write about something idiotic to overcome writer’s block. However, this article looks promising.

             Finally, a third way to conquer writer’s block is to stop writing. Give up for the day and sleep on it (but don’t give up for days). Or maybe, set down your current piece and start a completely new project. This is your final resort—I do not recommend stopping for a long period of time—one should write every day, regardless of the quality produced. Setting a specific time of day and writing for the same amount of time each day is absolutely necessary in becoming a writer. If you think that you should never force yourself to write—you are wrong.

            This is something hippies say, “Oh never force it out, just let it come to you.” Wrong. If you sit down and don’t let your pen/typing fingers stop moving, it’s going to flow automatically. Maybe everything you write that day will be crap, but I guarantee it will help you—or maybe there’s something—just one usable sentence among trash and it makes it all worth it. If you don’t believe me, you are probably like me, a lazy bum, and making up excuses for why you haven’t written anything in forever—don’t let yourself get behind.

           Writing must be done everyday.

Being Beautiful

            One day, when I’m old I think I’ll say something like,

            “Remember being beautiful?”

            But it’s like asking,

            “Remember being brunette?” after dying my hair blonde.

            But of course, I wouldn’t. Because being brunette didn’t change the way I ate a cherry: picking off the stem and swishing it around my mouth like Listerine until the fruit slipped off and spitting the seeds into my oscillating fan hoping one would catch a blade so I could see what happened.

             It wouldn’t change my mother or my father. Bleached roots did not suddenly inspire me to switch affections between high school boyfriends or favorings of political parties. My favorite candy was still Sour Apple Sour Punch Straws. Two sugars, half and half—now and then. Right now, I scowl at my Fashion Lashes when they fail to turn me into Twiggy. I threaten my hair-straightener with the new occupation of “wishbone” when it disappoints in taming my mane.

            And there is a hollowness when I see photographs of girls in bodies I will never attain—you know those girls, when every feature they possess looks like sex—and I’m not even talking about breasts or ass—but even their collar bones, tanned knuckles, eyelids, earlobes, even their cuticles are sexier than yours. Things I didn’t even know could look beautiful, do.

            And then I think, one day, I won’t even remember being beautiful.

            What it feels like—I won’t be able to describe it, like I could explain how a dead jellyfish squelches between toes at the Jersey shore, or the tickling of six wiry legs of a firefly scaling the hairs on my arm.  Or your calloused hand in mine—or his smooth hand striking across my cheekbone. Or sticking my fingers into a boiling pot of spaghetti and calling out for my mother.

            But, being beautiful—it isn’t a sensation.