Weird Beauty

It's times like these that I wish I had a good camera. You know, a camera that isn't actually just my cell phone. Because the sunset right now is the most beautiful one I've seen in ages. It's fantastically, amazingly, orgasmically beautiful. It's beyond sherbet beauty. It's fire beauty, mixed with ocean beauty, and I want it to stay like that forever so that everyone everywhere can see it and smile. But it's already almost gone and the night won't let me keep it.

Right now, most of the sky is dim, cloudy blue. But, there's a tiny wavery line of pink flames right above the navy mountains. And in a minute or two, even that will be gone.

I saw it by accident, at first. I just happened to look towards the lake, and the sky was on fire-- pure orange. I know that's cliche, but that was literally the first thought that came to mind. Fire. Then, pink wandered over, and then purple and blueberry, and they started to mix together with splotches of darkness and light, and all of it glowing. I wanted to run down to the waterfront so I could see the whole orb of the sky. But more than anything, I wanted to grab it-- make sure it never left.

It's almost like a reward for the weather we've been having lately. I mean, I love snow as much (probably more) as the next person, but when it's the 28th of April and it's been pouring snow for all of the past two days, it is a bit much. Especially when you have to wade through the three inch deep slush that covers the sidewalks in the mornings, and when you're wearing soaking wet sweater boots because your fake Uggs are way too worn through. And when it's supposed to get to 80 in about two days. And when it really was 80 about a month ago. Actually, our weather is really weird. I'm thoroughly confused by it.

The sunset's basically gone. The sky's ten times as dark as cobalt. The tiny bit of light that's left is a smoky orange. You can barely see its gaps through the trees.

Banana Boat

(I'm not entirely sure about the title. I had it as 'Faded' before, but I thought that sounded too depressing, especially since I don't really consider this poem to be that at all, really. Tell me what you think!!)

***

Early nights,
the sky glows cobalt, not
ready for the stars.

Watching our Crazy Snake Man
Steve Irwin
in big T-shirts and drying hair.
Surrounded by armies of Beast Wars
and the Barbies they always saved.

The sunscreen that turned our skin
the colors of popsicles
long washed away by
fun noodle gymnastics
and splashing to catch tiny shrimp
tickling our feet in tide pools.

Those sunscreen summers so
full of Kool-Aid
Bursts and collected beach glass

faded by the days
I thought I'd always have.

beauty

So, I have another poem. And, seriously, tell me what you think. Comments and criticism are always wicked awesome, no matter who they're from or what they say. <3


***

ugly, they call, like a
plague.

they say,
those streets, so littered so dirty so dark.

that house, crumpled in on itself,
such an eyesore
someone needs to fix it.
get rid of it.

that person,
so misshapen, so fat
look how wrong
it is.

eyes not big enough arms not small enough
just not good enough.

they don’t know that anything
that everything
everyone
that ever witnessed the blink of a smile or
held away broken tears
is beautiful.

and your flaws are
perfect.

Alina Dreamt

I have a new poem! It's kind of depressing (I'm not sure why, but that's just what came out). Anyway, tell me what you think!


Alina dreamt of bombs
landing on their house

every night.

She had three kids
three babies
one after another.

Each time, she wept
for those tiny fingers
blinking eyes, dandelion hair.

They wouldn’t be able to
survive it
when the world shattered.

She wouldn’t have another one.
She didn’t know, she said,
the point of new life
with that bomb floating over
their heads.

She held her babies to her
and shivered.

They crawled walked ran
laughed
grew.

Alina dreamt.

Charlotte

Two posts in one day??! Shit, I'm actually being a responsibleish blogger? Something must be wrong with me.

Well, anyway, here's the story I promised (see? I didn't even break my word!). It actually turned out to be monologue-y, which I wasn't really expecting, but, hey, it works. I think. Basically, you guys have to comment now and tell me what you think. Like, is the narrative believable? Is there anything you wanted more of? Less of? Just stuff like that <3

Oh, and it's probably wicked obvious, but Charlotte's the narrator.

***

You know how everything is different at night? Especially when you’re outside and you’re alone and you’re walking somewhere. And you’re far from your home, wherever that is. Or maybe whatever you’re at is really closer to home than anywhere else you’ve lived.

The outside really is more like home. The wind covers you and holds you, at least this time of year. And the street lights shine gold. Just for you. Except, not just you. For everyone. In the dark, you’re all together—all one person, one idea, even if a lot of people don’t realize it. But you can hear the whispers of their conversations and drunk stumblings like they were meant for you. And then you look at the sky, and there’s this plane. But it’s not a plane, really. Really, it’s this slow moving, almost blinking, red dot. And it’s somehow full of people you can’t see, people who have lives, lives probably totally different from yours. Like, maybe they live in Australia and have sexy accents. Maybe if they ever saw you, they’d fall in love with you on the spot. Or maybe, even though they’re so different, they’d be exactly like you. And all you can see of them, all you know of them, is this tiny red dot, moving millimeter by millimeter, passing stars as it heads up to the moon.

Can you imagine what your life would have been (would be) like if you were on that dot, a passenger of it, instead of walking nowhere and alone?

You’d have a purpose, right? Like, your sister lives in Germany and you’re on your way to see her. And you’re gonna buy a shit ton of German chocolate. I’ve never had German chocolate, I don’t think, but isn’t it supposed to be way better than American? Like everything else, basically. But, anyway, that doesn’t matter. Because you’re also hoping to pick up a bit of German. Your life goal could even be to learn one language from every continent, besides English.

I don’t know if I have a purpose. Or maybe it’s just to get away from all the bullshit that’s disguised as life. Like day time. When everyone pretends to smile. When everyone says, “Well, if that’s what you want. Well, if that’s what you really want.” When everyone pretends to agree, but in their minds, they’re telling you to go fuck yourself.

People don’t do that at night. Not as much, at least. The just walk. And laugh. And stumble. They go nowhere on purpose. That’s the most important part, the on purpose bit.

The only bad thing about night is that it’s sketchy, sometimes. Even though you’re all together, not everyone realizes it. And you can’t tell who does and who doesn’t. The big guy walking towards you might not. He might want to do something to you, and if he does you probably won’t be able to do anything about it.

That’s the one thing I don’t like about walking at night. Because you hear footsteps that aren’t real. Or if they are real, they’re streets away and you don’t know how you heard them. And then those binoculars that look out at the lake catch the corner of your eye, and they look like a face, all smiles. Maybe making fun of you. Or maybe they’re smiling at you for some different reason, because they know something. Or maybe it’s because you’re alone and the swings aren’t moving. It’s the worst when they’re so still like that. It’s like, they have to start moving, because what the fuck else can they do?

But I still don’t want to go anywhere because this is my home. My real home, at least. The one that matters. My house has nothing for me. It means nothing to me. Yeah, it has a bed, but whatever. Grass is enough of a bed for me, I think. I’m gonna try it tonight. I’ve been planning it for a while, but winter, you know. Otherwise I totally would have left before.

That’s kind of what life’s about, too. Leaving. It’s what those people on that plane are doing. I wonder where they are now. I can’t see them anymore.

When I was little, I thought the sky I saw was the sky everyone saw. Like, we all saw the same cloud shapes and everything. And if the furthest edge of the sky was sunny, then it must be sunny in China, too, since that was supposed to be the furthest place there was.

It’s so creepy what the night time does to the water, how it makes it black and foggy and see through all at the same time. And how the jetty has black holes in it. The night makes the gaps in between the rocks look huge, like you could live in one, like really there aren’t more rocks at the bottom of it all. I wonder what it’d be like to live in a black hole, like if you’d be alone or not. If everything would be blowing around you or if everything would be peacefully, unbearably still. Or if there’d even be anything. You know.

And I wonder why there’s a plank of wood floating on the water like a ghost. Really, it’s like a ghost. It’s white on the black water, and the water looks like glass. It doesn’t look real anymore. When I was a kid I’d have said it was from a shipwreck. Probably a pirate ship. Probably Captain Kidd or Black Beard. One of the famous ones, you know. But I’m not a kid anymore. Now, I’m a realist. And I see the world a lot more realistically than a lot of adults I know. A lot more, especially, than the ones I’m supposed to live with—I don’t think they ever really think of anything.

I don’t always know about my life, but I’m fucking glad I wasn’t born them.

It’s weird that there aren’t more animals out. You always, I mean, hear about animals being out at night and doing whatever they like doing best. But maybe it’s not late enough. Too many people out. Too many people echoing and falling. I’m not, but I would if I could, I think. I think everyone probably would, right? Because it means that you belong somewhere besides just in yourself.

I wonder what they want, the people who are already happy and drunk. And if they’re really happy now and times like now. If as a kid, they thought, yeah. When I’m 19, when I’m 22, I’m gonna go to some bar and order like ten shots with this kid I don’t know yet. And then we’re gonna talk about stuff, but it’ll all be about stuff that doesn’t matter, like restaurants and what we were doing five years ago.

I’ve never really thought about it too specifically. But do most people? Do most people plan out their lives at all? I don’t think I really do. Only sort of. Mostly, things just happen.

But I planned this. I don’t know what’s gonna happen after tonight, or even in five minutes, but I have an idea. And it’ll be important.

So, I'm psychic, now.

Okay. So, I was in bed, trying not to fall asleep because as soon as I do, I have to get up again, and once that happens, I have to do all the work I didn't do over the weekend because it was too nice out (and I just didn't wanna. I'm a horrible person.) Anyway, I was watching this guy slowly stumble up the walkway to his apartment (whoo, Sunday nights). As he was walking, I could hear this car getting ready to pass by him and my window. And I bet myself that it would be a cop car. And it was.

My first thought was, oh, shit.

My second was, I'm so gonna go blog about this.

So, I'm gonna actually go to bed, now, kind of.

(Do I say 'so' too much?)

The Process

My roommates and I went to the waterfront a few hours ago, and we only just got back. It was beautiful-- the weather was that perfect late spring night (I mean, it felt like it was late spring, even though it's totally not. But, I mean, really it's better because there aren't any bugs out!) The lake was totally still, so that you could see the reflections of the boats, buoys, logs, and everything else on the water. So, I started to get a little inspired, which was awesome since I've been going through a bit of a writer's block lately. I just don't know where to go with my ideas, and when I do I don't know how to write them down. I've been kind of doubting my writing ability lately. That's probably not helping.

Anyway, though, as I was walking along the water front, I saw everything, felt, breathed everything. And I wanted to write it all down, so that I wouldn't forget it all as I'm so often apt to do. Of course, I hadn't thought to bring any of my journals with me. I just had to try to absorb everything I could, and remember it. Luckily only about ten minutes later, they wanted to go to The Hilton to use the bathroom. I went to the front desk and asked if I could nab a piece of paper and a pen (I still have the pen) and started madly scribbling down everything I could think of. Here it is, in its full (okay, not actually full. This is only about the first half), unedited, awful glory:

"pale grey wood on water

still black

limbs of wood crossing, up down, a jungle of limbs

echo

plane going by, still light in the sky

echos of life footsteps

immobilized swings

crisp

fingers burn with cold (metal railings)

log floating, plank of wood floating, tree floating

sounds of maybe voices

black gaps under rocks-- someone could live there

no bugs

street lights

sarcasticish, wonderish teenage girl-- alone?

fantasizing about what could be, wondering what is, afraid of footsteps

pregnancy? prolly not.

dirt on knees of jeans and hands

cars passing

telescope with smiles

barren secret garden behind buildings

heart gasping through your throat"

So, yeah, I'm planing on writing a story from that. Hopefully it'll be up by Monday? I mean, assuming it works out and everything.