Ticking Tocking

Author's Note: Well, this poem is on my independent novel page, but I felt like it wasn't getting enough attention and I wanted some feedback. This poem is about a topic in my book came up about how time seems to fly right by, and there is not a thing that we can do to stop it, so I guess this poem is just the expression of these thoughts that we all encounter sometime during our life, and that will continue to show up within our lifetime, leaving bittersweet afterthoughts.

Ticking Tocking

In the house there is

Always a ticking tocking and a

Tocking ticking upon a moment of silence

That reminds us all of the fate that

Awaits us at the end of the hall where

The grandfather clock sits

Lurks with it's hands forever circling in

A motion of never ending counting
onetwo
       ticktock
              threefour
                     tocktick

It's face never revealing the

Slightest hint of emotion or hesitation to

Tell us the time tick tocking away faster

Each minute than the next almost like

His hands are trying to catch up for some

Important date that seems to ever loom

Closer and closer until it finally arrives and

His hands begin... to slow down...

Until... they stop... com...plete...ly.

Fading Away

Author's Note: This is a more personal piece about my grandmother, who we visited this past Mother's Day. It was hard to hear her not remember who we were, and this poem is just about how sad it is to see someone you love fade away before your eyes.

Little still lingers within your eyes --

Still the same color,

But not recognizing

Me;

Or your son.

I place the flowers on your bedside table --

Next to your pills,

Half empty, half full.

How are you doing?

But how silly of me,

For of course,

You'll only stare.

I want to do something,

Say something,

That will make you look up and see,

See with the eyes that I remember

The eyes that saw me through

Missions, and

Adventures,

I want you.

Not this shell of who you used to be.

You have faded,

Faded away with the color on the sheets.

Almost too light to see

Anymore.

I touch your hand

It is fragile and bony

I stare at your face,

It too,

Disappearing

Before my eyes.

Suddenly, a movement,

The nurse swings to your side:

Who are these people?

Make them leave.

Then we are gone,

Leaving you lost.

Alone.

Fading away with the color on the sheets.

Love Hurts, Literally

Recently while reading an issue of Time, I came across an article about how the pain of a broken heart and the pain of say, burning your hand, could actually be related.


Love already works in painful ways: falling in love head over heels, and then your heart is shattered. Like many have said, it's almost like "getting punched in the gut". And according to new research, this turns out not to be too far off -- the physical pain of an injury and the emotional pain of heartache are almost identical to the human brain and body. The pain a person can feel by both of these follows along the same neural pathways.

Until recently, studies have always shown the overlap in brain activity between emotional and physical pain, but those studies focused mainly on the feelings produced by them that were about the pain, like "I never want to feel that again" response after getting a paper cut or stubbing a toe. Not up until now have any studies linked purely emotional pain sources like grief or heartbreak with any sorts of pain like, for example, grabbing a hot bowl or mug.

For scientists to have gotten these results, they took 40 volunteers that had recently been through some heartbreak of their own, and, using an MRI took images of their brain when the volunteer was shown a picture of their ex. Surprisingly, the activity in the volunteer's brain was engaging the same pain circuits as when they were probed with heat sensors -- equivalent to the pain of holding a hot cup of coffee. The researchers that conducted this experiment believed that the intensity of the subjects' emotional hurting activated sensors in the pain pathways of the brain that are mostly tapped into only by physical stimulation, such as a slap or searing heat.

Could this be the cure for heartache? Unfortunately, no. Antidotes for physical pain, such as Ibuprofen, won't do much to mend a broken heart, but these new findings at least give some excuse to the hurt not being entirely in your head.

Then... and Now

Author's Note: Well, since we were assigned to keep writing over the break, here is a piece for your enjoyment(:

This is just some old writing that I dug up recently -- I am quite embarrassed by it actually -- but I thought that it would be a sort of statement for all of us to see how far we have come with our writing capabilities in the past years. 

This is so embarrassing, but here is a story about what pet we would want if we could have any pet in the entire world! from fifth grade: 

          The Perfect Pet

          

          One day, I was walking in the park when I was a little girl. Then I saw it! Right there in front of me was the cutest animal I had ever seen. A squirrel! I ran up to the little creature and reached out my hand. Just as I was about to touch it's milk chocolate colored fur, a giant hand seized mine and dragged me away.

          "No! No!" I cried, "Let me go! I want to touch it! Let me go!"

           The hand twirled me around. "Don't ever touch a wild animal! They are bad news little girl!" shout a very red-faced, tall man. I tried to free myself but the man had a firm grip on my hand. 

            "You listen to me little girl! Don't ever let me see you touch one of those little monsters!" his voice boomed. I continued to squirm until finally I wriggled free from his grasp. I ran to my mother and started to sob into her shoulder. I couldn't speak. I stood there staring at the red-faced man. 

           That was the day that I decided I was going to get a squirrel. Not so much for me, but to prove that man wrong and to finally get a chance to touch those wonderful little animals. 

          Today I started my search for my squirrel. I have already picked one out that I saw on the computer when I was looking at squirrels. I am looking at the International Squirrel Rescue and Adoption Center. There, they have many different varieties of squirrels. Many of which I was looking forward to seeing. 

          Once inside the ISRAC my ears were filled with the sound of squeaking and cages rattling. I was greeted by a not-so-friendly man who guided me to the cages. 

          "Here they are. Enjoy. " said the man with a completely noticeable smirk on his face and an unenthusiastic  tone.

          "Thank you!" I answered back, a lot more politely. I ducked through a squarish hole in the wall that led to the cages. 

          Walking into the room was a little overwhelming. Hundreds of cages lined the floor all around the room, reaching all the way up to the ceiling. "Wow..." I barely heard the word leave my lips. 

          I started to walk around the room, peering into the little cages occupied by he cute little animals. Finally, I would get my chance to touch a squirrel. My whole life I had imagined what it would be like, down to the very last detail. Now I get to actually have my own squirrel; a lot better than just being able to touch one! I approached a cage that held a small squirrel, it's back facing me. When it turned around I nearly fainted, it was the cutest squirrel I had ever seen in my whole entire 10 years of living! I looked both ways before reaching out to unlatch the cage. Right when my fingers touched the icy cold metal, someone slapped my hand and shoved a piece of paper in my face. 

           DO NOT PUT FINGERS THROUGH THE BARS, FEED, OR EVEN JUST PLAIN TOUCH THE ANIMALS! 

was what the paper said. 

          "Sorry kid, it's our policy," said a very tall and thin looking man. I looked at a small pin that was hanging on his shirt. 

MANAGER

ran across the top and below it, 

Tim

in shiny gold letters. 

         Once he saw my disappointed look, he quickly added, "But I'd be glad to take him out for you to hold if you're careful." 

          I stood there with a huge dumb grin on my face, nodding my head so hard I swore it could have just flew off. He unlatched the cage, reached in and grabbed the squirrel, pulled him out and sat him in my outstretched hands. The squirrel looked into my eyes, it's deep brown ones trying to explain something that I didn't quite understand. 

          "How did these all end up here?" I questioned. 

          "Well some of them, people thought would be good pets to have and then they found out that it takes a lot of responsibility to have animals like these as pets. Then they released them into the wild. and that's when we stepped in. And for the others, they just happened to stumble upon us while we were out," the man explained. 

          "What happened to this one?" I asked again with even more curiosity. 

          "Well, it was one of the unlucky ones that someone let go," he answered. 

          "I'll take it." The words just slipped out.

          "Excuse me?" Tim asked.

          "I'll take it!" I answered more confidently.

          He looked at me strangely and then told me to go to the front desk and fill out an adoption form while he put the squirrel in a take-home box.  I did as he told me and went to fill out the adoption form. 

          Later that day, I was sitting at the park with my new friend. I had named the squirrel Billy, after my uncle. We were just sitting there when all of a sudden a movement caught my eye. I slightly turned to looked towards the movement. Sitting down at another bench was a man. 

          He pulled out a book and sat there for a long time before he noticed me watching him. When he looked up I saw who the man was. He was the red-faced man from when I was a little girl who had yelled at me for wanting to touch the squirrel! He saw me and an ashamed look came across his face. 

          I smiled.

Fragile

Author's Note: This is the day one of The Truman Show. I know that this is posted a little late, but I had to make some finishing touches. It is kind of a ranting of my thoughts on the message of the movie, which I thought was quite interesting. I really enjoyed this movie a lot and actually found it one of my favorites  The second piece for this I am working on writing a story from the perspective of my life if I was finding that everything I had known my entire life was actually scripted. I think that it should be a fun piece and interesting, and I will post it soon!

Is what we do every day and every hour and every minute of our lives able to be called reality? Or are we being tricked into believing that it is? Those questions are the life of a man named Truman, born on live television to live a life inside a Hollywood movie set, evident to the entire world that his life is a TV show -- except for him. The people he meets, the town he lives in and the woman he even falls in "love" with is scripted and somehow filmed for the world to see.

Truman though, is not like the overly happy and eccentric actors upon the show, he is feeling trapped and depressed in this town, and wants to get away. Only all his attempts were failed one way or another. There was only ever one person who tried to reveal to him the truth about his life -- a woman named Sylvia that Truman was starting to fall in love with. She too, was whisked away from his life; they said she was going to Fiji. Evidently enough, Truman also had wanted to go to Fiji.

Finally Truman realizes that he must escape this town, this life full of fake and unreality. He is finally able to escape from the cameras and just try to get on with his life. Of course, his attempts for this are also tried to be stopped. Truman sets off upon the ocean, finally overcoming his fear of the water since his "dad" was drowned by a storm on the same waters. Surprisingly, even the tremendous storm created by the directors does not stop Truman from continuing to sail across the ocean. Then he hits the wall.

This part of the movie I believe is the most full of the symbolism for the message that the movie holds. It is here that Truman hits the wall, then seemingly walks across the water and up some stairs that lead to a door, hidden within the sky painted containment wall. Just before he walks through the door, a voice, almost seeming like God to Truman, starts to talk to him. He tells Truman that he has been there ever since he grew up, he watched him grow up into the man that he is, and that this world and life that Truman is leading is the best that anyone could have. He is protected from the dangers of the world, there is no evil inside this world, how could he possibly want to leave?

Truman does leave. He walks right out the door within the wall and there is nothing and no one that could have stopped him. This is like life. You live, protected and sheltered from your fears and weaknesses as a child, harbored by your parents and your innocence. For Truman to escape this, he is moving on to the part of his life that he must make his decisions, and his mistakes. He can no longer be protected by the scripts and the sets. That is the way that life is supposed to be. When Truman traveled across the ocean -- a symbol of the journey of one's life -- the directors did everything they could to try and stop him. Although it was hard for him to keep going, he still kept going. This is what we must do with our lives. If we are presented with challenges, we must get through them and continue our lives.

Advancing from your innocence to taking on your own responsibilities and living on your own is a tough thing. Truman was no longer being directed, and he was forced to make his own decisions as soon as he stepped through the door in that wall. The point is, when you have no one to direct you, you can do anything. "Life is fragile", is what Truman said during the movie. He is right, Life if fragile, and it is us who decide whether or not we want to take the risk of possibly making a crack in our fragile lives or not, and this is what makes life interesting. If no one was able take this risk, Life would be nothing but a boring shell. Truman was brave enough to take those risks, and we must also be this brave.

Author's Note: This piece is about a movie I recently watched in which a woman is left widowed by a freak accident that kills her husband. It is taking her awhile for the actuality of what has happened to sink in, and I wanted to portray the pain of what she was feeling through this poem. I experimented with format and capitalization of words that I thought were important feelings or objects. Comment what you think and any feedback for me!

I return home,

to what I Thought

was You and me.

But instead,

I find the House

Empty.

I return home

to where We used

to Stand

But now --

you've Gone;

Empty is my hand.

I return home

to once a Room filled

with Laughter

But now,

only Silence takes place

of what we Were.

And I return home

to the Regret

and the Stillness

Asking if the Pain of this

could ever Be

Less.

His Majesty

Author's Note: This is my response to the painting Jean-Léon Gérome - The Two Majesties. This painting is very romantic and a truly beautiful setting. This painting has a sort of harmony about it with the lion, the land, and the sun which really is what made me chose this piece of art.

The King stands

Surveying his kingdom;

An old friend at his side.

The two converse

About times past,

And times to come.

They look out

Across the land

That belongs to the King

"It is quite a beautiful sight, Your Majesty."

Says the friend.

"Ah, yes, indeed."

Says the King.

Solemn and quiet,

They watch in silence

The kingdom that stands before them.

And when the time comes,

They say their goodbyes.

The King

Surveying his kingdom.
Watching.
Watching...