A Fire

Moonlight bounces off a fire

In a way that binds.

Trapped in a trance of bright

Ideas dance around like licks of fire

Sparks induce a burning passion

For what could be.

Like wax holding in a flame,

We melt.

One by one our bodies become fluid

Pain is no reality

For our nerves have been plucked

From our waving hands.

With time the wax burns off.

What’s left is the lone fire

Used and abandoned

Now in deep woods

In solitude

Left to burn off to the dark

It’s oxygen depleting

And finally gone.

Trill

   As this year winds down, my work ethic does too. Pages become paragraphs, paragraphs become sentences, sentences become words. Eventually, hours of work produce nothing more than passing thoughts, vanishing before I can conjure up the effort to write them down.
   The sun becomes a drug stronger than any other and its sedating yet uplifting properties keep me in a state of euphoric laziness. Work can wait another minute in exchange for lounging in the bright outdoors. Or another hour. A paper overdue is now a paper impossible. Clammy fingertips are just another reason to stay away from uncomfortable keys.
   When heading to class, a room with windows seems ideal until five minutes of class pass. My eyes continually drift back to the windows and the golden sunlight is simply a tease. I try to look away but like little black magnets my pupils are always drawn back to the image between the metal window frames. This magnetism is stifling; sometimes I even want to write something or have serious interest in a discussion, but my uncontrollable urge to look away puts me in a state of unconscious observation. It's more than just zoning out or daydreaming. I can't tell if there are no thoughts going through me or if there are too many to recognize a single one. Either way, classes go by without me being present.
   I find it slightly amusing during the point in my high school career in which I have the least motivation, I am making the largest and probably most significant step in my lifetime so far. I suppose it's the same for many of us. And we are not to blame. I point my finger at the time, weather, and the place we live. There is no longer much reason to overload ourselves with school work, there is fresh green grass to be sat on, cold rivers to be jumped in, and warm sun to be absorbed.
   To put it simply, I'm not doing too well in regard to school work.

Italics

If my words were put on paper

They would be written in italics

Like a letter leaning over

My mind is full of unbalance.

If desire selects one thing

Sense decides another

Leaving a teeter-totter where

Swaying from one side to another,

I fall forward.

Though I may stumble

And sway

Like a sailor fresh off the sea

And onto a quaking San Francisco street

I move.

For a few steps in the direction

Of an image quite distant,

My tongue producing rhythm

Masterful lyricism;

Slick Rick and Andre

They make me a victim

To an imaginative mind.

Lunging again into the real

I quickly leave

Due to little appeal.

Again I strike it big

With fame and fortune

A California dream

Much different than truth

Of ghettos and smog

And more plastic

Than natural flesh,

But I disregard

Because I want the rest.

Until sense pushes desire,

And aggression starts a fight;

Beaten but not defeated

Strength pushes on

Stumbling to the left

Then leaning slightly to the right.

∆

Scratched into the surface of the bathroom mirror were the words, “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.”

A young man, intoxicated and nearing unconsciousness, slouched on the floor in the corner. The single dim bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling produced just enough light to reveal the sanguine walls were not pure. From baseboards to ceiling, messages were scrawled on every inch of wall. Though there was writing everywhere, the mirror was clean aside from its single message. The young man in the corner had become a part of the setting, absorbed into the atmosphere of the bathroom.

He was near asleep now, but his state of being had changed. Slowly his consciousness was going, but the last part of his brain left awake was sober; despite the spinning room he could see clearly and his perception was quick. His eyes moved over everything, shifting from the worn wooden door, to the dirty linoleum floor, to the dripping of poor plumbing under the sink, to the beer stain on the collar of his rumpled suede jacket, and back to the door.

--------------------------------------------------------- check-in

As his eyes stayed on the door, watchful like he was expecting a certain person, a man walked in. He was most likely still in his twenties and it looked like he had landed a solid job after college. Judging by his clean outfit complimented by a black tie, freshly shined leather shoes and a Rolex, he had probably graduated with a degree in business from NYU or George Washington. Finishing school with zero debt thanks to family money, he was undoubtedly given some job here in Manhattan with hardly any qualifications, earning more money off the bat than hundreds of others in the same company who had worked for years and were much more deserving. But when your father knows people, lack of credentials and effort don’t matter.

            It wasn’t just his outfit that gave all this away; it was his smirk. It wasn’t a youthful, excited smirk that would suggest he thought he would be getting lucky that night; it was one of ignorance, put on with effort to insinuate he could buy luck, and it showed he had a disgusting love for himself—a love greater than any he would ever gift a woman or other human or any thing on the Earth.

--------------------------------------------------------- check-in

Mirror

Scratched into the surface of the bathroom mirror were the words, “Your future is made by what you do next.”

It seemed serious, earnest in what it was trying to convey, but it felt very out of place. The next thing anyone who read it would be doing would probably be washing his hands. That’s it—this anonymous poet was attempting to make a simple bathroom stop a pivotal point for the lives of many. A cleansing perhaps. The washing of hands would be a symbolism of cleaning a person’s record and creating a blank slate. The past would be the past and they could be whoever they wanted to be from that point on.

Or maybe the author of the writing was not a poet; maybe he was being quite literal. His statement was very true. Every action a person makes directly alters their future and changes their options to follow. /….

I started this piece with an idea but realized it wasn't how I wanted it. I plan on starting over but with a new initial message on the mirror. I want the message to be something that holds no philosophical meaning (and is maybe somewhat crude) but that could be taken in a way that makes it appear it's author may have put very deep thought into it. With this, I'll take it through various directions, pondering what it means and what the author's intentions were.