Pick Your Poison

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——–

One step, two, three, four….

Two step, three, four…

Three step..

Four.

The sound of her heels on the concrete sidewalk echo within her empty heart, as her eyes train to the ground beneath her feet. She follows the path of yesterday’s rain puddles, cautiously stepping into the water. It rids herself the burden of seeing her own reflection.

Shame, hatred and annoyance bundle into one, constantly reminding her of all that went wrong. She was his poison, and he was her antidote. He could heal her with a few simple words, but she could kill him any second they were together… And she did. Emotions rain down within her as moisture prickles on her face. She stops.

Raising her fingers towards her eyes, she sighs.

Before she can wipe away the tears, the sound of soft rain surrounds her. She raises her eyes up towards the sky; however, her eyelids begin to flutter as little droplets mix with the salty tears. It continues on a slow descent of masking her pain – or at least attempting to. The rain begins to pour.

The woman moves her hands towards her bag and, with a snap, an ivory blue umbrella extends above. As her eyes focus on the concrete, she begins to walk again. It feels like an eternity of pain.

Although it isn’t long before, as she ponders what else could possibly go wrong in her life, two feet stop her in her tracks. She blinks while her eyes lazily travel up towards the anonymous person.

Their eyes meet.

His face drips with endless amounts of rain and he is breathing heavily, as if from running for a long distance. Emotions swirl and clash as a final tear slips out of her right eye; instantly, it camouflages with a single drop of rain.

The umbrella slips from her wet fingers, clattering to the ground.

Rain beats down on the two while her lips begin to form words…

Then she says the only question that is constantly running through her mind, and it is, “Tom, why are you still here?”

——–

Image result for anime guy finds girl crying in rain gif

Photo Creds: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/dd/fd/e5/ddfde51666993463798dde04e6b88876.gif

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This is what I’ve been dreading

Featured Image: https://www.pinterest.com/superkelseyb/build-a-story-gifs/

Laurie Halse Anderson Writer’s Seminar
Emulation from “Speak”
→ “This is what I’ve been dreading”

I close my eyes.
This is what I’ve been dreading.
That you will find out the truth,
I didn’t mean to hide anything,
Not from you at least,
But I was so scared,
I didn’t know how to talk about it.

I know that you’re hurt,
And I don’t know how to comfort you.
I want to rub your back,
Hold you tight while you sob
And tell you that everything will be alright
But I don’t expect anything to get better, though.

I’ve ruined everything,
Your love and your trust.
It is now you again, telling me it’s not the end
“Everything will be alright in the end” you say
Oh, I’m so grateful
What did I do to deserve you?

You’re a blessing, my love
And I will make sure to
protect you, nurture you
And love you forever.

I’m never going to let you go,
I’m never going to mess this up.

“I love you” I whisper
And slowly open my eyes
To see my reflection in yours.

******************************************************************************

This piece was my emulation from my writing seminar on Laurie Halse Anderson. The lines: “I close my eyes. This is what I’ve been dreading.” are from the book called Speak by Anderson. These lines can be found in chapter 1 on page 3.

The Girl In The Sky

Each night she picked the brightest stars from the night sky and squeezed them together. Each morning she threw the bundle up high into the sky, and pulled the moon back down.

She did not grow, or change, or even talk, for she had no one to talk to. Her only purpose was picking, pulling and throwing. She kept the world moving, kept the people sane, but she never got anything in return. She had become forgotten in this new modern world, turned into a mere story told to guide the young ones to sleep.

In the beginning she thought she would be okay, just seeing their happy faces in the sunlight she created was enough. She never felt pain, or hunger, or cold. Her life was easy compared to those below her. She knew she was lucky, to be able to live so simply in her pretty dress made from the fallen stars and stray rays of light, her long, golden hair stained from the countless kisses of the sun and the moon flowing softly behind her.

But she was alone.

She envied the people below her, always so busy with their own lives. Lives they made for themselves. They always had places to be, people to meet, they didn’t have time to look up and bathe in the beauty of the sky she worked so hard on. She wanted to be acknowledged . To have people to praise her and help her, to talk to and laugh with. To have places to be and people to meet. She had grown tired of always being in the same place, to have the whole world right below her, but not being able to explore it.

She wanted to put her hard work into living a good life, eating hearty meals and making a happy family, falling asleep together in beds as soft as the clouds surrounding her, in arms as warm as the raging sun. She wanted to experience love and heartbreak, feel the pain of hunger, feel the fresh breath of a cold winter day, see the world change right in front of her as she wrinkled and grayed. She wanted so much, yet she couldn’t have any of it.

And decides, the sky wasn’t the same as it was when she first started taking care of it. It was no longer the clear, blue ocean that she could never grow tired of. It had become murky and full of waste, leaving her sick and dizzy at times. She had to work twice as hard as before in order keep it even moderately clean. It was her home and the dream of the people below her, yet they gave her pollution in thanks.

She liked to think of how they’d react if the mess they created killed her. When the air around her becomes more toxic gas than anything, and she falls to the ground because she had forgotten what a fresh breath of air felt like. She loved imaging their terrified faces as the moon never left the sky and the sun became a sweet dream, the warmth leaving their skin and their faces pale underneath the soft glow of the moonlight.

Maybe then they’d remember her, the girl who never stopped working, the girl who lived in the sky.

She wondered when she her thoughts had gotten so twisted. When had she started wishing for whatever evils she could think of to descend onto the clueless mortals scurrying on the ground. Maybe she did deserve the pollution that seemed to grow larger each day, because she too had become polluted.

She wanted to live down below, where it was clean and pretty and you could easily forget the growing threat contaminating the sky. She had grown greedy, from living such an easy life, she wanted even more.

And now, as the strength left her body and she fell straight down, she wanted all of it with such a strong urge she almost couldn’t feel her body slowly disappearing, or the tears gliding down her face. The imaginary life she dreamt of so often flashed before her, and the beauty of living passed by in a second. Her sad smile was the last to fade away as she came in contact with the earth, before anyone could even notice her.

And as the last corner of her sweet, pink lips vanished, the sky came to a stop. The moon stood tall in all its glory, surrounded by its army of stars, protected by a shield of soft clouds. The sun lay hidden, its light still bright as ever, as it always will be, but never to be seen again.

Just like she wished, their faces became terrified, their minds confused, and their hearts nervously marched to their own rhythm. The moon never left the sky, the heat of a bright summer day, forgotten.

Picture from: favim.com/image/2734227/

Hope: A Fools Paradise

It had started to rain today, a thick heavy rain, and I remembered my dad always telling me how the rain makes everything heavier, especially the silence. Even now in the hospital it seemed that everything had slowed down, the hall usually filled with busy nurses was now empty, the constant bustle of people outside now slowing down. Moments like this only made me wish that I could wake up the next morning without this disease in my head, but I knew that wasn’t realistic, this thing would continue grow inside me until it would leave me blank and hollow.

An itchy white blanket, an old lumpy mattress, and the uniform beeping of the machines beside me have all become a source of comfort. My mom says it will only be a couple of weeks before I’ll be done with my chemo, and then everything will be back to the way it used to be.

The truth is that I don’t see that happening to me any time soon, if anything, I feel that I am getting worse; I spend most of my time in the constraints of these four walls too tired to do anything else. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones considering the circumstances, my doctors say I have a real shot at beating this if everything goes well. I’ve been hearing that ever since we learned that I had a brain tumor and I wonder now if it will ever become reality, if I will ever get the chance to ride my bike again, or if I’ll get the chance to go on a date, or play in the snow. Get the chance to live.

They tell me that there is a new surgery that could finally fix me. I know that I shouldn’t get too excited, but I can already feel hope seeping its way inside me filling me with false joy. I can’t help but imagine what it will be like when I finally get to go home, a wave of delirium washes over me just by thinking about it . Of course just like any surgery there are risks, it might not even work on me but by now I’m willing to try anything. Minute by minute I can slowly feel this disease eating away pieces of me, and it will not stop until I’m just a mound of flesh and blood lying in this bed. The next day it had been set, and I would have been lying if I said that I wasn’t afraid.

As my world goes into a hazy fog, I imagine what my life would be like if this actually worked.

I am camping outdoors with my mom, exploring the woods and making s’mores the ashes from the fire glowing an amber of orange light. I am traveling around the world experiencing all the great wonders of this life. I feel the wind in my hair and the warmth of the sun straining down on me. For once in my life I feel free.

That was only my imagination of course, only a dream, and when I woke up nothing had changed. I was back inside the four walls, an itchy white blanket, an old lumpy mattress, and the uniform beeping of the machines beside me.

an open letter to a lost friend

you don’t know who
you are
and if you are reading this now
it likely is not you

I am writing this in response
to the overwhelming hole
I caused
within my own heart

a heart that was blackened
by darkness, shrunk
and shrivelled by the
urge to cast love away

you see, old friend –
the first thing that books
never tell you
about depression

is not the loneliness you
feel inside
(lord know I know enough
of that)
but the loneliness

you create around you

the loneliness that made
me push you away;
afraid of exposing the darkness
within

you may ask:
“why did you keep silent”
but what you may
never understand

is that opening up
about the darkness
is far more treacherous
than keeping it hidden because

you can wrap a cold
heart in silence
until the broken beats
disappear from fuzzy ears

and for this reason
I never told you, friend

and for this reason
I have lost a friend

I am better now
my heart is healed
no longer wrapped
in patchwork fabrics of

silence loneliness lethargy

but the place where
the blackened heart
lay
is the place where our

friendship is buried today
wrapped
in patchwork fabrics of
silence silence silence

I am sorry friend
for the unanswered calls
and texts
the cancelled plans

and the lump
in my throat when I
talk to you
the lump that is there

because I don’t know how
to speak to you
without wanting to
burst out in apologies

and explanations

maybe, friend
you may never know
how you still kept the
darkness at bay

even though I never
gave you a chance
to know that
it existed

so thank you, old friend
for healing my heart
without knowing it’s
terminal illness

and I plead
that you may read
this and know
that it is you

you, my friend,
I am indebted to.

~a friend

*I wrote this at 2:00 a.m. Under the influence of a caffeinated influx of emotion, so I apologize for the vomit-esque style and flow.

“Safe.”

What was “safe?”

There was nothing safe about this place.

I was being discriminated because of my culture and faith.

Now tell me do you still think that me staying here is safe?

They mock us when we fall and struggle to get back up again.

laugh at us trying to survive.

spit at us when we beg for mercy.

scream at us when we cry our hearts out.

abuse us for simply breathing!

I have not seen mama and papa in 2…3… wait no 5 months.

I haven’t seen my baby sister in god knows how long!

They said they would keep me “safe” when they separated me from my family!

-I’m only 11 years old.

They said they would keep me “safe” when they put me in this place,

-which felt no different than a cage.

They said they would keep me “safe” even after they tattooed these numbers on my arm.

-I was in pain.

Why didn’t they understand “I DID NOT FEEL SAFE?”

I can not sleep

I barely eat

And I feel as if I’m now forbidden to breathe.

So someone please I’m begging you take me someplace safe.

 

 

Love at First Sight – Journaling Prompts

“Love at first sight is bull$*%(, you can’t just like someone for their looks.”
“No, love at first sight is real!”
“You just think that because your crush changes every week.”
“But I actually do like them!”
“Have you even talked to them?”
Her gaze faltered, and she looked down at those words, “No.”
“So how do you know that you like them?”
“Because they seem nice, and they’re good looking.”
“That’s all?”
“You don’t like someone, you wouldn’t get it.”
“Okay, but I still don’t think love at first sight is a real thing.”
“Yes, but it only takes your brain a millisecond to decide that you’re attracted to someone.”
“‘Attracted’ is the key word here. You don’t love them, it’s attraction, or infatuation.”
She was stumped after that. I felt a smirk tugging at the corner of my mouth.

 

“I hate Romeo and Juliet, it’s so stupid.”
“Of course you would.”
“Okay, but they knew each other for less than a day and they decided to get married.”
“It’s true love!”
“More like true lust. They hardly knew each other, I mean, the play follows the course of three days, not even.  It’s like how you manage to like a different person every week.”
“Okay, but you saying you’ve never liked someone sounds unrealistic too,” She counters. 
“I hardly ever talk to boys.”
“So how can you say it’s impossible for you to like anyone? You won’t know unless you talk to one.”
I bit my tongue after that.
She was right.

 

“So, now that I’ve told you I like, you have to tell me who you like,” She’s got this devious look on her face that makes me uncomfortable.
“No one.”
“Bull$*(#,” She tosses the deck of cards aside.
“I’m not bullshitting,” I feel a twinge of annoyance. 
“You have to like someone,” She scowls at me.  
“Do fictional characters count?”
“No! I’m talking about real people!”
“Well I don’t like anyone, I’m being honest.”
“That’s impossible, you have to have liked someone.”
“Well sorry to disappoint.”
“What about him?” She doesn’t say a name, but I know who she’s referring to.
“Don’t even go there.”

The Colour of I-Don’t-Know

 

You eyes are the colour of I-don’t-know. Somewhere between this chocolate brown and coal black. No matter how hard I stare, I can’t figure it out. But when the light hits them just right, I can see right into them. Not into your soul. Souls are not what lay behind eyes. Eyes aren’t the windows to souls. Eyes are the doorways to the path that winds around the spectrum of your life.

When I look into your eyes, I can see everything you’ve seen. I can see memories upon memories, piled into the realms of your mind. I can see the small smile you get when you pick a flower, the crinkle of your nose when you catch a snowflake on your tongue, the tears glistening in your eyes when you just don’t feel like you amount to what you should.

I can see your laughter dancing across your ribs, and up your back. I can see giggles seeping from your lips. I can see pain stitched across your cheeks. The years will carve your face, structuring it so it can hold more. I can see tears stained into the skin. Tears that have dried, tears that have been wiped away. Tears that you have forgotten and ones that you have not. I can see the things you did not want to see on your lashes, each one long and beautiful, framing your view with things you want to forget.

I can see the ink life has spun across you, in intricate lines, and delicate swirls. Paint brush strokes of beauty that came from your madness, across your torso. I can see every secret you have whispered, laid across your arms, and every promise you have broken stretched along your collarbone. I can see the shadows of your future, creeping up your legs.

You’re not perfect. And that’s ok.

You will make mistakes. And that’s ok.

But I’m here to make sure you don’t make the same ones I did.

Your eyes are the colour of I-don’t-know. And I’d like to keep it that way so I can keep looking.

 

Reading Ladder Progression

Khizer K.                    Reading Ladder Progression                January 19th, 2016

Reading Rate: 0.86pg/min

Goal for Reading Rate: 0.90-1.00/min

Books Completed: 7

Goal for Completion: 7-9

Total Pages Read Until Now: 1,410 Pages.

Readings per Week: 140 pages per week.

Readings er Day: 20 Pages per day. 

Currently Reading: Tempest by William Shakespeare

Titles of Books Read:

  • Purification of the Heart- Hamza Yusuf (192 pages)
  • In the footsteps of Muhammad- Tariq Ramadan (216 pages)
  • The Companions Part I- Abdul Wahid Hamid (251 pages)
  • The Companions Part II- Abdul Wahid Hamid (246 pages)
  • Gratitude and Patience Epic- Imam Al Jouzeeh (50 Pages)
  • Allegory of the Cave: Plato (125 Pages)
  • Thousand Splendid Suns: Khaled Hosseini (367 Pages)
  • The Fault in Our Stars – John Green (313 Pages)
  • Night – Ellie Wiesel (115 Pages)

Books Desired to Read:

  • Hamlet/Tempest
  • Plato The Republic

With the increasing number of obligations from main core subjects I have found it very difficult to find the time and effort to read throughout this first semester. This has not stopped me, however, and I have been successful into maintaining a daily amount of time purely dedicated to reading. It has helped me discover a wealth of knowledge, in terms of writing, and has sparked an even greater passion to devote more time into discovering the world of literature. At this point in the semester I am at a comfortable level of reading and will be working to read more higher level content as this semester finishes.

Her Light

My heart fills with joy every time I see her,

I feel my heart rapidly beating

It’s as if it wants to be hers, and only hers,

My heart lives for her.

So, why does my mind not?

It constantly forced me to second guess my instincts

It makes me regret the things I didn’t do.

Why must I have a mind that lives in darkness?

Soon enough it lets this beautiful light

slip out of my hands.

My heart overpowers my mind for a moment

I ask her as she begins to walk away,

“Am I yours?”

she turns around looking me in the eyes

staring in silence no words are heard,

nor will they ever be.

she turns back around and leaves just as fast as she came,

the light my heart lived for was no longer present.

so, why?

Why do I still long for her?

My heart is again encased in darkness

It doesn’t beat for anyone anymore

So, why must it continue to beat so fast?

I feel it continuously bang itself against my lungs,

Whenever I talk to others, I like, it suffocates me

I’m unable to speak as it punches the air out of me.

I wonder how foolish my heart can be

How is it possible that it remembers her light?

Why hasn’t it gotten over her light?

Why does it only accept her light?

Some days I’ll follow my heart to see where it guides me,

I lay down and listen to its rhythm, its song,

I shut off my mind

Letting my heart take control of me completely,

Often, I find myself sprinting into the depths darkness.

With every step taken I find myself immersed in a darker shadow

Why do I run? I wonder.

Alone I run in a space full of darkness.

I begin to see a small, bright light in the distance

It was her who shone a light into the cave I call my heart.

Her eyes pieced through the pitch-black darkness

Her aura soon covered it with the warmth of the sun

I sprinted towards her,

But after what seemed like months

I never got closer.

Her eyes are embedded into my hearts mind

It was the last wonder it saw of her.

I stay engulfed in darkness

I stay chasing a dream

But no matter what,

I’ll never reach her.

picture  –  http://onejourneyatatime.com/site/post/Ecuador-8.aspx