Rahsash Geldich

Hmm, I have a test I probably should be studying for now... O well! Nice poem, and a happier subject is a nice change of pace in the Banquet Room.

Thanks! I think the So is actually part of my style, adding an extra beat to the last line of a stanza is an odd habit of mine that usually makes it flow better in my head. Thank you again for your comments!

Too easy to hurt Too easy to break So easy to marr And so hard to re make If you must love Know what you take Hearts will still bleed From one old mistake

She followed the man out of the inn, the overheard voices in her mind also. This man was ambitious, which was not the same as evil. She would find out his purposes. In a test, she let him hear her footfalls. His move. OOC: Are you in charge of your own charrie or can other people RP them too?

Men and Oranges Coming home from school one day, There was a hunger in my belly That simply wouldn't be ignored By veggin' out via the telly. So I turned it off to look around And what would I espy? A fruit of sunny color Lying close nearby. After valiant battles fought With siblings for posession, I must profess, ashamedly, This rather odd confession. I couln't peel the blasted thing! Its bitter peel refused to crack! I glared at it and grabbed a knife, My thoughts on a delightful act. To stab, and gut, and eat it up Would fill up every need Except the want to savor Was taking away my greed. So I used the knife to gently pry The outer shell away Leaving the juicy filling "How marvelous" I say And that bit of agitation Alright-hatred, led To a deep and special bond With fruit of mixed yellow and red (to all of you who missed finger-painting 101 as a child, red and yellow make orange.) Well, not the best thing ever concocted, and not exactly a love poem, but close enough for government work.

It reminds me of satire in that wonderful way of hearing something said that should be innocent is taken very not so. Snickeringly hilarious.

It kinda has the feeling of a song, and some deep thoughts that don't really come out as well as they could. Very lyric though, and sweet. Reminded me of a rock lullaby. (I hope you know what I meant by that)

The Secret Box is one of those metaphors I use a lot, I'm glad that it's felt. Thanks for posting!

Thank you very much! I'm using it for my portfolio piece, and I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Thanks for your comments you guys! And mostly, the thoughts-on-a-line are my adaptation of free verse. If I write too much my thought patterns start to do that in my head.

Very sweet, and it sounds like a lullaby. Sad, but not too much. Kinda like a gentle rain... Okay, so its rainy outside and it puts me in a drifty mood, he he.

I'll tell myself Its the coffee That makes my hands- Quiver- as they reach Across the ocean of space Between our desks To follow those Familiar lines I have once traced That are the face I know so well This feeling of Fluttering wings With little thorns Is hunger in my belly Not- me craving Your hand on my back In my hair, brushing, Soothing my tears. Coaxing them to close My throat with their pressure I think I just need a drink. That will help cool My puffy eyes That sting in rememberance Of my soaked pillow That was surely Just a bad dream.

There was very little originally to do, except get dressed for our first meeting. The "mandatory attire" for this meeting consisted of an itchy red blazer (mine was also too big for me), a white dress shirt (which I bypassed by wearing a tank top), and black pants (of which I had none). So, as an alternative, I wriggled into a pair of pantyhose, which I personally believe to be one of the great nessicary banes of a female's existence, and a black skirt. Skirts and I have just recently started complying with one another, mostly due to the fact that I am abnormally small in the waist for the breadth of my hips. I'm sure you can imagine my comfort. So we all go down to this meeting, which is in the Queen room. Whoever designed the names for this place was dense. A hallway directory would read more like a sentence phrase, in this case "Mary" "Queen" of "Scott". Anyways, back to what I was really talking about. There is an ocean of about six hundred people in red coats. And only five hundred chairs. Every one of the officers has an accent that makes the stereotype of Kentucky proud to exist and those who don't have it cringe in their chairs. Two muderous hours later we burst out with more enthusiasm than children deserting a school on the last day. Fast forward to about noon the next day. After a brakfast of a biscut, an apple and coffee, we had gotten dressed and accomplished our one purpose for this confrence at all by trying out for the Trading Pin Design. It was too early, and I with too little sleep, to be nervous. Stairs are hell in new pumps, by the way. So everyone had split their seperate ways, and I was left to entertain myself. Uht o. You can guess my absolute thrill of the idea of spending the next six hours flipping through bad daytime television in our toom, so I chose to take the least direct route there in hope something would attract my attention long enough. Wow o Wow did it. In the form of a male, whom obviously was well built under his white tee, and was going swimming from the looks of his trunks. He also had bare feet and sandy brown hair spiked up. I was admiriably casual, I thought, for my next move. Also gutsy, since I am about one of the shyest people in the world when it comes to meeting new ones. "Hey." He turned and glanced my way, sizing me up in a general manner. I gave him one of my biggest smiles and a hair flip to boot. I'm not a... how shall I put this... person who treats relationships lightly. I just think flirting can be very amusing for both parties involved if done properly. "Do you mind if I follow you around? All my group left me." "Sure, I don't care. I was just lookign for the other guy in my group." "There's only two of you?" "Yeah, what about you all?" "Eight or so, they're still trickling in." The thing that really hit me the hardest was his height. He couldn't have been taller than five nine, but I'm pretty short. Five four usually puts me eye to eye with a guy's collarbone. It was definitely nice to be looking at someones eyes and not craning your neck at the same time. They were brown, by the way.

This hurts- A molten saw Ravaging nerves Frayed into snapping They flail at the air- Down I fall And abyss Of Nothingness Swallows me whole Icy tendrils thrust Their roots Ruthlessly Into my heart- The tempo slows Vines climb The trellace of my soul And they block The piercing rays Of the sun. It is too hard To uproot these weeds Of despair- They feed on my Discontentment And while they are ugly No one seems to notice; To want to pull them out And help me reach Up to the sun. This cocoon is Stronger than I And I can't see out. The shade is unending The darkness Is isolation It makes my head throb. Poison fruit rots The stench creeping Seeping bleak thoughts Into the hidden crannies Of my mind. I think I might crack- My skull jaggedly split Perhaps because My tears- Of release- are Stuck Trapped Unable to seep Down my face And shrivel These roots from Desert soil To rip off the foilage Covering the flaws Would be so exposing- Its so asy to hide But O! How I shrivel And am overtaken Obscured- Lost to oblivion here Let someone find me- Have some urge To see what lies Behind the bark of this plant with Tough limbs and Hidden barbed thorns Instill them with Courage Hope That what they find May yet again reach Up to the sun.

Can I try? Just edit me out if not! The head of the village council paced. This stranger was curious, and so was she. A black cloaked allowed her to slip to the inn. A closed door, smell of blood, and feeling of the occult leaked through. Paitence was a virtue, even to the highest. She could wait.

I should be able After long expirence To fix this- Mend the broken Shattered bones That structure all For I am the secret box Made to need To drain the poisons From wounds That they might Heal By locking away The venom of injustice Skilled hands Reach in, pulling Fiberous threads Spinning the pain Into golden comfort A web of relief: Sleep, my child All is well But this time- I can't My hands clumsy Gnarled closed With thick knuckles- Calloused palms- Spreading these tears I wish to wash off Ripping fears away Before the seed has flourished Leaves roots- Deep, sinuous They still claw at the mind To blossom again Because of my Mangled attempts

((This contains small language usage that may be offensive, which I apologize for but wish to say this of. When I use such words, they are pretty much adjectives for when simple, childhood phrasing like "dangitt" just isn't going to satisfy that urge to scream.)) It was Sunday. That in itself was almost enough for me. It was also the end of spring break, which had been about the worst one ever. It was second only to the time we drove to Lake Cumberland and the van broke down to leave us in Rock freaking Castle Kentucky throwing Cheese-its into the road and watching them be run over by cars for amusement. And then finishing the rest of the drive in a five-person car with seven of us. And then having it rain the whole time we were there, while we were locked out of the house and told to “go hike or something.” This is the true reason I drag my friends on these trips. If I have to suffer, so do they, damnit. We ended up dubbing it “The Hell Trip.” This spring break seemed to want to remind me brutally of the past one, weather wise. The sky opened up and poured rain down the Ohio Valley until every piece of greenery seemed to burst form the earth in an attempt to be the first to reach the sky. I worked my way through three sappy romance novels, which to much of my chagrin, I am beginning to like. My dad had outlawed seeing my boyfriend the entire week, which I thought was stupid as all hell considering I had been out the entire week before at a New York trip with the drama class in my school. I was brimming with wonderful stories of the big city and its many interesting wonders. Mainly the phenomenon of the pedestrians, which if I got started on, I could write more than anyone cares to read about such a thing. Let it suffice to say I found the war of attrition interesting. Not being able to share any of the wonderfulness of buildings taller than any in my home city put me in a sulk that was brutally ruffled by my ever-present siblings. Ten years is apparently not long enough to have gained any real sense on this earth. My grandma was having hip replacement surgery, which left my mom in a foul mood and her Chihuahua at our house. Stupid spoiled ratdog. Babysitting with a dog and ten year olds. Woot. So here I was, Sunday, the first beautiful day all week. Getting up early for work with the time change sucked. Seven comes a lot earlier when your body is telling you that it’s six. I got home and remembered that I had a wonderful (this being a sarcastic implication) convention to go to with my commercial arts class. Saying that computers are not my forte is like saying that Britney Spears wears skimpy clothing. Accurate, but definitely not descriptive enough to give an appropriate impression. I had surprised myself by being rather good at the class, and I have it to fall back on since I was to be a theater major. It will ease the starvation, I’m hoping at least. I had designed a pin, as in those dorky things that go on your lapels and are apparently traded by people that have no lives. I may not have much of one, but at least I have not sunk that far yet. It was a fairly interesting layout and I was recruited to go to this thing since everyone else’s in my class pretty much sucked too much to show to the general public. I ended up being late to the meeting time by ten minuets. Since I am almost always late, I didn’t feel too bad and missing the trip due to my own tardiness only would have made my day better. And that’s not being sarcastic. Unfortunately, it had apparently been a whole lot of ‘hurry up and wait.’ The situation at home had gotten worse during my frantic packing because of a cousin of mine being in an accident. The first person to have told us was my psychotic drug-addict aunt who was the mother of one of the ten year olds, the other actually being my sibling though both live with us. We knew from her half demanding, half grieving mother (which we found hard to believe considering she’d left the sixteen year old nine months earlier to move to Nevada without any notice to live in the house of her ex-husbands parents) routine that my cousin was badly injured, but nothing else about her condition. My live-in cousin took it hard, which was hard on me and the combination of his crying-puffed face and my parents possessive clinging was hard to leave and left me fried before I got there. After about ten minutes of sitting and doing nothing I got a mountain dew, which soothed me only because it gave me something to do. Most of the kids I had in class, the others were from the morning session. I didn’t know any of them really well, since I went to a different school, but they were nice enough to me. I had some beads and made an entire necklace before we finally left two and a half hours after we were supposed to. The hotel was like the one from the shining, minus obnoxious decorating. It still had a lot of seventies architecture, like holes cut in walls for decorations and the bathrooms being tiled in the particular shade of green that was only produced in that particular era. The beds were only a minor amount softer than the floor and we had a smoking room. It didn’t smell too bad but I am allergic to the stuff, and breathing it too much gives me a sultry rasp to my voice that’ll turn into strep throat if I don’t stay away until it returns to normal.

Very powerful just doesn't cut it. The piece is moving in its simplicity of human feeling, particularly remembrance and how what we love can fade and leave us fading with it. Wonderful and definitely worthy of tissues.

this is so great! your writing is so hilarious i'm surprised I'm not getting glares at people to shut up already due to my current somber surroundings. Mucho Bravos! (yeah, yeah, yeah, different languages and all that)

Very nice work, I espically appreciate the repition. It's a powerful tool that I can't quite to seem to master, and therefore greatly admire. The interesting thing about friends is that they come and go like clouds, always different, but without them, the rising of the sun in life just doesn't shine with the same colors. ::blinks:: That came out either really jumbled or really intelligent. Probably the first.

::Feels all warm and fuzzy:: I definitely didn't think that my personal narrative would be such an... appreciated piece, I wasn't kidding when I said I detested the things. As to your question Orlan, the purpose is a litte of both. I wanted to express the way I view the entire situation, but also, I thought it was essential to see how my friends and I interacted with it. As for writing on one theme, I've definitely never been any good at it!

This strikes me as a motivational piece, oddly. The thing I fear the most is not death, but dying with no purpose. They say that Idle hands easily complete the work of the devil, but they are also very good at making things that no one will care much for. The way you put it makes it almost a caution, very interesting and compelling.

Your imagery is astounding, and the play on words allows enough subtleties to allow the piece to conform to each reader while never losing the point of the poem. Beautiful in a dreary way. Sometimes in our eternal search for happiness, we look too hard in some places to see the obvious ones. Lovely work!

I've spent so much time In a fantasy place The real and the not Are on the same face Daydreams of someone I will never find Half created wishings Pour out of my mind They wash 'round my world And coat it with slime Untill all my thoughts Are far too sublime They serve no real purpose And there is no escape Within their confines Romance cannot take shape

Alright, this is more of a final draft than anything, it looks a lot better I thought. Hopefully my english teacher will agree. I think it’s extremely difficult to write a personal narrative. Some people don’t like to for the simple reason that they detest to pick up a pen and put it to paper. Others have the ability, but in other areas. They can write poetry that can somehow tell you the meaning of life, but cannot write a story to save themselves from the demise of their English teachers burning holes in their stomach with their eyes because of another late paper. Yet I think there is one more reason, one that holds more truth than any of the previous, that people on the whole would rather not write narrative literature. To create a really moving piece that actually leaves the reader on better trains of thought than “Dear God above, if I ever have to read such an abuse of the English language again, I will shove it down my throat in an attempt to commit suicide,” you have to tap into yourself. You have to dive deep into those crannies that we hide from ourselves with shadow and shove behind curtains so they can be forgotten. I don’t know about you, but I loathe breaking out those feelings of weakness, jealousy, doubt, and anything that allowing those cavities of secreted expression to escape can throw upon the surface to mortally embarrass me. People hate to admit a phobia of spiders when they read someone else’s Tale of Courage and Bravery. You know, the one where after both ankles were broken and having fallen upon an entire nest of spiders, they miraculously drug the orphan children from the burning house. Occasionally we have to do what must be done, and pray that our writing doesn’t end up on the cause of death line on an autopsy report. I am going to dare to mine into those places of secrecy, and possibly the element of fear will make both of our tasks, dear reader, more interesting. It is as I walk down the hallway that I first notice. I idly flip through my agenda and shrug my jacket closer in the unusual chill floating around in the school hallways that always seem devoid of air conditioning and quiet. The two swarmed around me and I realize that the television that is nestled in a corner in every classroom is on, doorway after doorway that I pass. The picture speaks in a deep male voice that conveys immense empathy, but the plastic quality of it hints that underneath the sympathetic informant tone is a bored, “I’ve said this every day for the past three months.” A news-stream is swimming along the bottom, as if there is so much to communicate that you have to listen and read and watch as the reporter goes to half the screen and the troops he speaks of are shown to the right of his mask-like face that matches the voice with its choreographed mobility. I pointedly don’t listen. I know I probably should be, because it is, after all, my country. I say the pledge and play the national anthem with the band at games. For as long as I can remember I have heard the crashing sounds of jets overhead, especially at Thunder Over Louisville when the stealth bombers and Boeing line fly over our house on their way to the river where they’ll be showing off how much butt they can kick. But up until now the butt in question has remained untargeted and the planes virtually little more than a flexing of muscle. I awake from my reverie and continue back to class, but tendrils of fear have already soured my previously happy mood and I slip back into it without meaning to. Why should we kill to get people to see that we shouldn’t be hated? Why do we keep insisting upon the war we ‘enter reluctantly’? I don’t understand it, and to tell the truth, I am not entirely sure I want to. I don’t want to know what makes it right for us to police the world. My ex boyfriend passes me in the hallway and he makes a friendly lunge as if to tackle me. I leap back towards some lockers, grinning, and stick my tongue out at him. If his section of the Air Force gets pulled, he could be in one of those planes I always hear. As with all of my many friends going into the military, leaving and maybe never coming back, there are phantoms flitting around deep in his eyes. A girl with the same name as me is going into the navy, and every time she talks about it, there is a subtle fear of drowning under her happiness of being on a boat four out of seven days a week. They all have imps on their shoulders and the shadows look out at me also see their future threatening to fall in shattered pieces they must walk upon with bare feet. I finally make it back to the classroom and my sigh of relief is stilled in my throat since the melodramatic news show that seems to dominate all is on here too. A friend of mine is watching with a scowl, perched upon a desktop with an arm connecting chin and knee. Everything about her stance tells about her opinion that not only should we not be in that country, Mr. Bush shouldn’t have the title of president. My earlier thoughts about the jets and the never ending, awaiting a quick ending resurface. The Fahrenheit 451 book on my desk looms up into a parallel that I cannot shove away. “I hate this!” The outburst draws my attention away from the red banner of a revelation lying with complete innocence to my friend. “We aren’t in there for the oil, we’re in there because we want a war so we can all rally around the flag and sing Kumbya!” “I would pay big bucks to hear you sing Kumbya,” I tell her in a laughing manner. She doesn’t seem to get the hint. “Seriously though!” Well, perhaps she did and she simply is choosing to ignore it. “I mean, our economy’s down the drain and we’re simply going around expending billions of dollars!” “D’you know,” I interrupt, “that in Washington D.C. there’s places going around changing the name of French fries to freedom fries? If you ask me, that’s being ridiculous.” “What’d the French say?” she asks me distractedly, profile harsh against the afternoon light streaming in through the window on the far side of the classroom. “That French fries didn’t even originate in France, they came from Belgium or something like that.” A smile hints around the corners of her mouth but the rest of her face quickly shutters it off. Her hands, as if of their own accord, sweep her hand up into a ponytail that she would irritably take back down a few moments later. “Well, it figures. People are probably going around, insisting that they won’t drink French-” “I made a pretty letter!” A piece of paper slices through our political meandering and I jump back, nearly losing my seating on the desk. A Celtic-looking K is taking up most of my field of vision. I gently push it back to a place where it might gain some semblance of focus. One of my friends is sitting behind her desk with a contented grin stretching from one ear to the other with her pleasure at the accomplishment. She seems to have no other cares in the world and is perfectly happy to be coloring letters. Even though she is human, I can almost feel a purr emanating from her. “Wow…” my political friend drawls, the syllable capturing the irony of the situation perfectly. “Here we are, having an exceedingly serious conversation about The War and all of a sudden-” “I made a pretty letter!” I interrupt with a mimic that exceeds the level of happiness necessary to imitate the statement. The letter drawer drops the edges of her grin into a frown that is just as animated, to the point you can tell she wants to laugh. “I hate you guys sometimes, you know that?” She begins to shove her colored pencils back into their box with a little more force than needed as the other and I attempt to cut off the giggling pouring out of us. “But we love you!” I say in a voice that drips sugared honey all over, drawing out the vowel and leaning over to give her a bear hug. “Ack! No! Get off! Bubble! You’re invading my BUBBLE!” She squeaks and finally I let go, leaving her flustered enough to satisfy me. A sigh is shoved through a clenched jaw as she smoothes her long hair back into its appropriate place, giving me death looks. The other finally stops laughing to nearly fall off the desk. The letter girl and I crack up, and I can almost feel my sides splitting. The bell rings and we leave, allowing the box to continue its babbling at the world that it thinks is still there. However, we aren’t. Whenever I think of that, the empty room the only audience to the contraptions monotonous and morbid preaching, I like to think that we’re still grounded. It’s close to impossible to maintain an opinion that is our own when we are constantly being brainwashed by show after show of destruction and propaganda. There’s a fine line between being informed and being shocked until we take such things for the norm. The more and more I think about it, I hear Montags’ ‘family’ whispering at me from every corner, trying to pull me in and convince me of… Something. Perhaps of there being no wrong, or right. Maybe just that there is no such thing anymore as an idea being seeded in the brain. A concept that feeds upon the nourishment provided until it blooms into one massive moment where everything clarifies and we whisper “Eureka.” I am afraid, deep down, that we will not be able to resist the abundance of opinions that seem to be just lying about. It’s almost at the point I would rather remain slightly unbiased to prevent an unraveling of what I interpret to be a correct train of thought. Somewhere I perceive a paradox in that statement.