Rahsash Geldich

A very mystical writing indeed. It seems that a prevalent force, just shy of justice (the line "I am not judgeful, nor bent on vengance") is watching, although it is unclear who they are watching.

Another possibility that poses is that there is no real wrong or right, just two prevalent forces that should be melded into one great "Way" that is Grey and neither, but both in the same sense. Very interesting, since the theme flows from a desolate 'dark' landscape being brought back to the 'light' into it.

Good stuff, please don't mind my analytical babbling (umless of course, you liked it )

Really good freestyle, might I add, with a... hmm, insert complimentary adjective here use of punctiuation that indicated pauses.

I think it’s extremely difficult to write a personal narrative. Some people don’t like to because they just plain don’t like to write. Others, because their talents lie in other places, or they can write beautiful, moving poetry, yet cannot write a story to save their English teacher from shooting fire from her eyes into their bellies because for again, their paper is late.

Yet, I think there is one more reason, which is truer than any of those, that people on the whole dislike personal narratives. To write 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 attempt to commit suicide” you have to tap into yourself. Deep into those hidden crannies we cloak in shadow and shove behind curtains.

People don’t like to be perceived as weak, fearful, jealous, doubting, or as anything that allowing those inner crannies of expression to escape can throw upon the surface to mortally embarrass us. We hate to admit a fear of spiders when reading someone else’s piece about how after getting both ankles broken and falling on a spiders’ nest, they still miraculously drug the orphan children from the burning house.

Or at least, that’s the way it is with me. But I’m going to write a narrative about fear anyways. Who knows, maybe it will be interesting after all.

I was walking down the hallway when I first noticed it. Every television in every classroom is on, and the picture speaks in a deep male voice that conveys immense empathy while still not managing to completely mask the 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 is ever more plastic in its mobility.

I pointedly don’t listen. All of it makes me afraid, the way that I’ve seen three wars in my lifetime and I’m not even old enough to be considered a voting citizen to say if I want them to happen. A girl with the same name as me going into the navy, my ex-boyfriend going into the air force, so many of my other friends with plans of joining and leaving and maybe never coming back. I can see the phantoms swimming behind their eyes and can see them looking out when they watch their future fall in shattered pieces they must walk upon with bare feet. It makes me so afraid.

I know that I should probably be listening, because it is, after all, my country. I say the pledge and play the national anthem with the band at games. I live a short distance from Fort Knox and I see the planes fly overhead in Thunder Over Louisville. The crashing sounds of the jets have never been absent from my life. I am happy where I live and would not rather belong to any other country. But I don’t agree with this.

Why should we have to go and kill people to get them to see that we shouldn’t be hated? Why do we keep insisting upon the war that 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.

I was talking about this with a friend of mine who is very into politics. She has an opinion on the war; a heated opinion that not only should we not be in that country, but Mr. Bush shouldn’t have the title of president. But I am not here to write a persuasive letter.

It’s English and here too we have the television on, babbling the same morbid phrases over and over, and in it I hear parallels between Fahrenheit 451 as I try to block it out, rather unsuccessfully.

“I hate this! 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! 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.”

I watch people almost to the point it’s a hobby. It’s amazing how much you can find out about a person just by watching their body language, seeing how they carry themselves around certain people. A lounging position or crossed arms, an irritated tapping of fingers or an idle twirling of hair.

Her stance was tense, leaning forward and suggesting aggressive tendencies that lie just beneath the surface. As if of their own accord, her hands swept her hair 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 is shoved roughly into my face and I jump back, nearly losing my seating on the desktop. A Celtic-looking ‘K’ is taking up most of my field of vision. I gently put it back to a place where it might gain some semblance of focus. One of my other friends is sitting at her desk with a contented grin stretching from one ear to the other in her pleasure at the accomplishment. She seems to have no other cares in the world and is perfectly happy to be coloring letters.

“Wow…” my political friend drawls, the syllable summing up just about everything. I laugh at the sheer irony of the situation.

“Here we are, having an exceedingly serious conversation about the War and all of a sudden-”

“I made a pretty letter!” I interrupt with an overly happy mimic. The letter drawer scowls at us, laughing too, inside.

“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 necessary as the other and I giggle hysterically.

“But we love you!” I say in a voice that drips honeyed sugar all over, drawing out the vowel and leaning over to give her a bear hug.

“Ack! No no no no! Bubble! You’re invading my BUBBLE!” She squeaks and finally I let go, leaving her sufficiently flustered. She sighs and smoothes her long hair back into its appropriate place, giving me death looks. The other comes very close to falling off also, and it’s the letter drawers’ and my turn to laugh. The bell rings and we leave, allowing the box to continue its babbling at the world that it thinks is there.

I think that the news shows have gone almost overboard with this. Yes, it’s good that we know what’s going on, but if we see it every day, how are we going to maintain our sense of individuality? How are we going to maintain our opinions when we are constantly being brainwashed by show after show of death and destruction? The more and more I think about it, the more and more 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, of ideas that people want me to think instead of ones that come into the brain and bubble around for a good while until finally in one massive Eureka moment everything clarifies. A non-conformist to a fault. I suppose I always will be, but I can’t help but to resist the abundance of opinions lying about.

It’s almost as if I would rather remain slightly unbiased in any way to prevent an unraveling of what I interpret to be a correct train of thought. Somewhere I perceive a paradox within that statement.

Edited for cosmetic reasons

The Thing the tackled you is growling, and has two paws pressing painfullyintoyour shoulders. The half of you you tried to kill, rather unsucessfully, forces one of your eyes open. It's not a pretty view. Slightly yellowed teeth are grinning in a not-mirthful way into your face.

"Hey! You stupid piece of moth eaten fur! What did you drag in now?" The Thing is dragged off you effortlessly and thrown aside, although you know you couldn't have even managed a muscle spasm under its weight. It stands now a small distance off, whining and lying close to the ground. The lighting principles of the previous place, everything walking around as if they've been drawn on to a sheet of black paper and no background has been filled in. The music is More definable now, a female singer musically clashign with the heavy string and drum that accompanies it.

You finally manage to open up the other eye and look at your savior.

An extremely unhappy brunette with a cat-likened face is glaring at you. Off tap beats that you feel up your legs tell you a foot is impatient and crossed arms are never a good sign when first meeting a person.

You slowly raise yourself up and get to your feet, dusting yourself off out of habit.

"I... uh, um, hi?"

"How," she asks, displeasure saturating her voice, "Did you get into YOU ALL Hell?"

The sign glows white as you continue to walk past it, looking back at it every now and then. The path continues to vanish as you follow it, but the sign still glows in the receding background of black. It is monotonous, winding, and you feel as if you aren't moving at all as you trudge onwards. The thought of stepping off the path into that black abyss is so unappealing that you almost lack the desire to stray at all. The minor bit of couriosity left is quickly held dangerously hostage by your self-preservation.

Then you hear the music. It is comming from a great distance and even from it, a dull bass throbbing is noticable. Squinting, you can almost make out a... something... not too far off. You sit down to rest a while, but you are not tired in the least and stand back up, dusting yourself off sheepishly and looking around, as if titters are comming unseen from the ink around you. The throb becomes a heartbeat and you wish you hadn't come up with the idea of grinning mouths, although the uneasy, observed feeling that usually accompanies is not present.

The thing turns out to be a gate, suspended between two posts that levitate a few inches off the circular cul-de-sack that the path spits you off into. When you walk closer to inspect the intricate appearing contraption, it vanishes without a trace, leaving you feeling a little more alone.

"Look stupid, paths aren't exactly alive, they aren't even friendly inanimate objects." The voice is yours, but the music has you on the edge, and looking at the gate, you begin to have a rather lively conversation with yourself.

"I don't like that music."

"You can't even hear it."

"No one asked you."

"Shut up, smart aelic." As if this plane has infected you, suddenly you're looking at a mirror image of you, only you don't remember ever wearing such an atrocious ensamble of red. Then again, yout hink, looking down, white isn't one of your favorites either.

"Cute." The sarcasm drips and falls with a dull plop that stirs up the dust around the gate, which you have determined to be two complex silver posts holding a rather unremarkable barred gate with seven interlocked rings at the top. The gate itself is of glass.

You stick your tongue out at yourself and walk a full circle around it, then turn and walk the other way to be sure.

The other you wiggles your fingers under it, and you watch, trying to ignore the growing sense of wrongness that swells as you realise the music is comming from the other side of the gate.

"But there is no other side!" Both yous protest. You sigh in unison and step together to face it.

You are one again. The self-preserving part of your sanity squishes the lonliness before it creates anything else. A shaky hand extends to open up the gate, and wraps itself around the bar. When you pull, it swings open noiselessly on a hingeless edge. Some part of you catalogues that you grabbed second from the edge, or perhaps the sixth from the other side...

There is no recognizable difference in the space between the posts, but you walk through as if running the gauntlet. Eyes closed tightly shut, you can't immediatly see the force that slams into you from the side and tackles you to the ground.

There are other worlds and planes here on earth. Not the ecosystem in a fishbowl, mind you, or the planes full of buisnssmen and women engrossed in the waves of the stock market falling with a tide but rather the places created.

If you were to stumble upon this particular plane, I'm sorry. The ones there are not always kind to visitors. And to say that they aren't playing with a full deck of cards is an understatement. Not only are the majority of the spades gone, but the few diamonds left are full of chew marks. There is also an ace through seven set of blue circles in there.

But suppose somehow you had still traipsed into this plane. Even more unfortunate is that you have to be dead to reach it.

There is a sign you see when you first arrive. All around you is black, save the winding dirt path that you see meandering in front of you. When you walk, it dissappears from behind you to create a literal one way path. The sign has what appears to be graffitti on it. The original had simply the word HELL inscribed in a thick black print. Someone has taken a black marker and drawn an arrow to an 'o'. You stare. A cobalt blue with spidery, evil villaness handwriting has written 'I live there'. Your eye follows a bright orange arrow to an "It's in France." Something tells you it actually isn't, perhaps the obsessively neat childish print. Next in a red is "I have a cottage there, please come visit." The way it reminds you of a mad-man's scrawl isn't encouraging int he least. The blue returns with the last tidbit. "I have a mansion, KEEP OUT!" You stare at the sign for a moment, then edge as far away as the path will allow you. Kansas may be too far out of reach, but you think you now have an awful lot in common with Alice.

Lost from the world

Alone I roam

With my faith as a beacon

Those around see

They don't understand

But all see

Sometimes I wander

with the Lost

fires already in their eyes

dancing along their flesh

ashen tears down

plastic faces and

permanent masques

Their glowing auras

Clash against mine

Flickers of lightning

Insinuate ideas

That toy into my mind

Only to be snuffed out

By my own shining;

Urethral and tangible

Away to the darkness

By the Power

Diamond among rhinestones

All glittering and beautiful

Some, even more coveted

Than the truth within

But destruction will leave

One to go on high

The rest left in shards

Abandoned to the breeze

I try to fit into a setting

none are prepared

ready for me

Able to contain me

Even I don't know

Where I fit into

This messed up world

Why I am so different

For having hope

Allowing myself

To believe in something

Knowing without

Ever seeing

Holding for truth

The unverified

And being saved

By blindness

So I wander on

Safe in my light

Able to place

My worries all safe

from my own heart

And I am special

I am the Nearly Lost

Rahsash gave a sudden jolt that tumbled her out of her bed and onto the floor, where she landed in an unhappy heap, hair askew and rather messy after several late nights hacking at her writer's block. A ray of sunlight had somehow managed to find its way in through her multi-layerd drapes, and was shining painfully into her eyes.

"Rumshtlft!" Her hands flew to her face and she irritably threw a blanket over her head untill she adjusted. It was a while, as sensitivity to light was something she considered one of her less desireable characteristics. Half-squinting, she gathered her dark aburn locks about her and tied them up into her messy morning bun and not particularly caring it looked as if a fuzzy cat had attacked her head.

"Algldadleump." Still not bothering with actual speech, she stumbled over to the music system and slipped in a morning selection that was soon blaring in her room, carefully soundproofed by some nifty spells. She did an elaborate stretching dance that took the entirety of a song and dumped the bedclothes unceremoniously back onto the bed, where yet another nifty spell neatened the entire thing and cranked it back up into its place in the cieling of her main chamber.

"Breakfast is good." Humming, she pulled on a rather grungy and well-worn pair of paint-splattered jeans and a lace-up corset-style top. Morning was not a time to argue with her over fashion sense. Rahsash had the same attitude about matching clothing as most artists or poets. If it was comfortable and wasn't a hideous clash of shade and tone, who cares.

"Good morning Sleeping Beauty." Katiya's sarcastic voice drifted in over the music. The writer had a smudge of ink on her cheek that Rahsash decided to diplomatically not mention. "Any particualr reason you feel the need to wake the rest of us at this hour?" A black tabby meowed reproachfully and dissappeared back into Kat's lodgings.

"I'm going to get some coffee, you want any?"

"I'm going back to bed, I think you've sniffed too many paint fumes."

"I'll tell them to get some bacon sent up in about another two hours."

"Hetsuphdnft." A guesture that mostly resembled a convulsion accompanied this and a door slam was the last Rahsash saw. She turned the music off and brushed her hair, putting it up into a neater greecian-roman ribbon-wrapped thing that looked as if it was going to fall down but somehow didn't. A bit of black around her green eyes and she walked out onto her balcony to shut the large doors that she liked to keep open while she slept.

Something gleamed on her porch. She walked over, muttering.

"Stupid people who throw things off the upper balconies, they don't........." To say she was not a morning person was to put it politely, and polite she was only at the best of times, or when it ws dark out.

It was a skull. Skulls are a nasty way to be awakened. Barefooted, she stalked out of her room in search of some answers, and where was her coffee?

I think I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown... I'm trying to not think about it.

I don't know how I got here

I'm about to go off and snap

As I cannot stop from yelling

When my bro goes "tap tap tap"

Invisible drumsticks

Beat into my brain

Everything outside

Covered in frozen rain

Two inches of an ice rink

Cover my entire world

After a while I see no color

Its just these greys all swirled

There's no one in my house

To free my mind to fly

Away from this hell-wrought place

Where no time ever passes by

In a week I've lived so long

My life has been stolen away

Eternity has shrunk, it

Encompases just one day

Stuck in the house so bored

I've liquified and am pooling

Into a gooey mess

That misses schooling

And while to some its nothing

Whenever I'm asked to tell

Of my week to another

It's as if, my soul I re-sell

I absolutely love this stanza:

Welcome to the world of the learning,

You need a pencil and eraser to apply.

Today we're going to learn about letters.

If you don't understand, there's no doubt in our minds that you need some medicine for your psycological problem.

I was in traditional schooling, failing all of my classes and very miserable. When I moved, I suddenly aquired a 4.0 that none of my teachers would have thought of me. Who is right? The teachers who demand perfection, or the child who flourishes under a slight bending of the rules?

Also, my brother gets in trouble all the time, but he gets the entire week's work done in one class. Who's right, the teacher that says he can't stay focused?

Excellent poem.

I have decided that if you can't fit in with one crowd, try another. You might be surprised.

-It's a marching band thing, you simply couldn't understand.

Normally, I'm not overly religious or faithful, or even optimistic, but this week I made a goal to try to be positive and just trust. It might be my imagination, but good things are more apt to happen when you're looking up. ::purrs a bit, unable to explain it all in words well::

I don't mean to offend anyone with talking about God, and for goodness sakes, I'm not going to go around converting everyone. I just write this about faith in general, and what it can do for you.

So many are drowning in the world

It sometimes kinda makes me sick

To know that there is blinding light

But solutions don't always click.

Why do people seek oblivion

When all they want is love?

They say there is no beauty left,

What about the sky above?

Why can't they take the idea

Someone's watching over them,

Wants to reach out and help?

They are shoving away a gem.

Because stop and really think

What if someone really was?

Someone is there with you,

Reasonably doing things he does.

So by all reason, don't worry

He's in control and knows best

Live your life to the fullest

And he will take care of the rest.

Everything that hurts you

Isn't too much for you to bear

Because if it really was,

Why would God put it there?

If you think you're ugly,

You're dysfunctional, all wrong

Know that someone made you

Your parts He thought on long.

Unburden your hearts from

All that weighs upon your soul

Faith is something that often

Can re-make you whole.

I can really relate to this as many of my friends drink, smoke, and do things to themselves which I know to be hurtful. It's sometimes as if it hurts me more than them, strange as it is. I g thingdon't understand it at all, but knowing i am in the right is the only consoilin

Happiness is a state

That is difficult to achieve

Cannot be held

Cannot be seen

And slips and hides

When you look for it.

Let it happen

::Applauds and leaves it at that::

I love this! It is the true, pure form of writers block whne you simply cannot think of a rhyme to save your life, much less one that doesn't come off sounding like Hop on Pop. Lack of a muse kills the starving writer.

Birds are symbols of so much yet you narrow the field beautifully.

Very nightmarish with good imagery. You can almost feel the cold hands creeping up.

I went snowboarding in negative degree weather the other night. Wonderful stuff, snow. Beautiful poem Vlad.

I like the way you change the chorus slightly each time, it creates an eloquent break. Excellent.

Thank you very much, I appreciate your comments. And as for your comment Perehil, I read over this and I son't know from where I pulled it, some dark recess in the mind. Ah well, it reminded me of something lonesome.

Its so real that it's surreal

I am drowning in a sea

Of ice and frigid water

That is all surrounding me.

I paddle to the side

For suddenly it's a pool

I pull myself out, look around

Feeling quite the fool.

A woman and her child

Language all unknown

Speaking so swiftly

understanding unsown.

I wander into the shack

Perfectly dry and courious

There's a woman by the window

Another storms in furious

The angry one has a gun

And she points it to the first

An unseen one calls from behind

Here is what's the worst!

I hear the gun go off

The woman lets out a scream

"I didn't shoot anyone!" reapeats

But the Keep and I fall as a team

I felt the bullet enter my head

Three inches above my eyes

I hit the ground painlessly

The screams fade to sighs

"You shot me" Leaves my mouth

And I black out at her feet

And in my bed I wake up

What a bad morning to meet.

I don't really care

You've shattered me

Scattered me

Broken me into pieces

And thrown me

Into the wind.

Your promises frozen

Glitteringly delicate,

When touched they distort

And melt in my hands.

Dripping onto the floor

With my tears

Splashing silently

All to dust in the breeze.

I don't really care

But its so hard

When ya'll are wrapped

Rocking, pivoting-

Dancers in a musicbox.

I want to snap the lid shut

So I won't see

I won't hear

I won't know

But I have and it knaws.

You're shredding

Going into the dark

You led me in

We're both lost now.

I can see the light

But no matter of my call

You're too lost to hear

And you don't want to.

In the darkness

Of your musicbox

You want your porcelain doll.

So I wind the key

Step back and smile

The ghost that is faint

Translucent lips grin.

The music plays on

As I hum the tune

You two dance

And I wish myself

Painted porcelain

So that I might dance

And she turn the key

Sometimes when it is meant to be

All that returns when you set it free

Is someone who cares, and loves

But is strikingly similar to doves

They love and return, but long to be free

And they don't always mean to hurt you & me

Though we say they were free to go

They still feel tetherd, it doesn't show

But when they are free they often find

They were better off before, blind

Circles are endless with simplicity, eternity represented. Pain in an endless line. Let it go

I like this one with the way it sound like someone speaking to themselves to try to sort out their emotions. I've often used running for the same reasons. Beautiful