Behind "Not as Intended"

It's interesting.  I tried to write about the beauty of the smoke curling from incense and how it seemed sort of Zen.  Since the smoke moved and curled with the air and didn't try to resist.  I was thinking of how we should try to just move with the rhythms, the winds, the flow of what comes and happens.  But all I could do is write about death and destruction.  Here was something marvelous and beautiful in front of me that was soothing and calming and I turned it into something macabre.  Even when I feel at peace and even when I try to think and feel optimistic and happy I think dark thoughts.  Is that simply my inner self?  Am I really just that dark?  Or seriously fucked up and bi-polar?  Why is it that even when people see and say that I am happy and bouncy I am really quite dark and morbid?  I remember during my senior year of high school I felt the happiest and most whole and at peace.  It seemed like everything was going in a great direction for me.  I wasn't doing any self-mutilation that I can remember.  But all my poems, all the writing was so dark and deathly.  I wrote about slashing my wrists, child abuse, strangling people.  It was as if by being so happy my psyche had to balance it out by being depressing.  Perhaps the quote I used to have on my wall is true- writing takes the real inner self and, as a person turning out their pockets to see what's inside, it puts it all out there.

Not as Intended

Smoke curls as the wind blows
moving in dances and rhythms seen but not heard
a musical destruction beneath
that creates a deathly scene
Beauty that mesmerizes and hypnotizes
can bring death if the spell goes unbroken

______________________________________

Smoke curls as the air moves
not caring which direction it is taken
the fire that burns beneath
creates a scene of devastation
The beauty of the their mixed dance
hypnotizes and mesmerizes
death comes to those who cannot break the spell.

Behind "As of Now"

Last night I went outside to take in the diapers I had hung to dry earlier.  I noticed it was a beautiful night.  When I went upstairs I got the kitchen cleaned up and thought that I would clean, do a bit on my computer or read the newspaper then go to bed.  But I remembered how nice it was outside and that I don't get a lot of chances to just sit on my own like that.  Everyone else was asleep, I knew Adam could listen for the girls without me.  So I took my laptop, a snack and the paper outside. 

I've been meaning to start writing at least once a week, if not every day for at least 5 minutes.  In high school Lit class we'd be given a topic, often just a word.  And we'd write for some amount of time.  I honestly can't remember how long but I want to say 15 minutes. Which seems forever at first but is such good practice!  We were told to just keep writing, not to stop.  Even if all we wrote was how we hated writing for so long or had nothing to say.  But just keep writing.  I want to have 15 minutes a day, but I rarely do.  So I'll go with 5 for now.  Anyways.  I told myself to just write.  I didn't set a timer, I said just write.  Don't edit yourself (ok, so I did a bit).  Don't say it's crap or good (ok, I did).  I didn't give myself a word or anything.  I just wanted to write.  And man oh man did it feel good!  I would have preferred to have my paper and pens, I can write with a computer but it feels more halting, more detached for me.  I decided to just post it.  Let it live and let the interwebs decide if it has any merit as actual literature or was what it was supposed to be, a chance for me to write.

Hopefully you'll see more of these in the future.  That big part of me that writes is sort of getting pissed off about being in a cage.  It's been given too many formal "write a lovely letter" or "have an online polite discussion with someone and try to get them to see your point of view".  Time to let it run wild and free.  Who knows... maybe some of this will actually be good!

As of Now

As I sit in the stillness that is night I appreciate the glow of indoor lights.  The keys under my hands I remember a time of only paper and pen.  Trying to balance bending notebooks on bent knees gives way to warm motors heating a lap.  Words used to flow like water from a high ledge.  Now they stutter and stammer in a desert.  Do I blame this lack on self or the change in time?  Do I blame this death valley of writing on fears and regrets?  Do I blame this on where it belongs or find some excuse to take the burden off my own mind?  Crickets, unnamed insects in the dark.  A dark I avoided once and now want to delve into with a fierceness one starved contains.  Smells of night and hidden vices bring back memories of wrapping into the world and not wanting to miss a moment. Memories trigger another and another and another, a sudden flow that gushes the water words out of my hands at too slow a pace for my mind to prefer.  I rush to get keys closer to find the way to get the words through faster to find the ending the way the means... to comunicate.  To reach out.  To let it all out in a way that others will hear, read, feel and know.  To get them to understand.  Understand what?  To understand that the night, the dark, the time.  Yes that's it, the time. The time is what's key.  The time is nice and now. It's stolen from sleep from cuddles.  But also hidden away from the cries and the "mama"s.  The kitchen cleaned, a bit, I can escape to a now cool place and listen, and feel, and hear and remember.  Dark secrets whispered in the night. Dark secrets I share again, I relive again. Does he think of me?  Does it matter if he cares or wishes me ill?  Why does it haunt my mind? Because it is nature to do so.  To push the thoughts away does not service my self.  To hide from feelings only makes them push at you harder like the torrent of words behind the boulder that was shoved in their way.  No more they say.  No more, let us out.  You cannot avoid them any more.  Do not run, do not hide.  Embrace what you think, what you feel.  Zen or no, enjoy them and let them slip away.  Try to follow the flow, the ebb.  But do not get swept up in the hurt.  Joy brings pain.  Pain brings joy.  One is not without the other. 

My brain slows.  The thoughts retreat.  The start of a car reminds me of sleep.  I am tired of driving.  I desire to rest from my control.  I turn to the paper and let the noises, the smells, the memories fade.  For now.

Story behind "Names"

When I was in 9th and 10th grades I lived in a small rural town.  I had moved there from a larger city.  To call the move hell is an understatement.  Even back in the "city" I had been a bit odd and eccentric.  But in a small farming community I was a downright freak.  No, I didn't have a ton of piercings, strange hair or anything.  I was just different.  And to most of them different was to be feared, avoided and what I felt most of all, judged.  In 11th grade I was fortunate enough to be accepted to a public arts high school with a dorm, back near my beloved city.  I was now almost normal by their standards.  But I still felt sometimes like an outsider.  I sometimes felt that I was still being judged.  So that's where this poem came in.  Pretty obvious I know.  But teens can't be expected to write not-so obvious poetry.

Names

Like God said to Adam
“Go forth and conquer the earth”
Naming creatures
That didn’t need them at all
So you name me,
And claim your Godhead
I need no name.
Only a heart to give me emotions,
A mind to give me thoughts,
And a soul to give me purity.
The body that I inhabit
Is here for appearance only,
Gives motion and protection
It is not who I am.
You are not the first
You will not be the last,
To look upon my body
With its curves, shapes, and blemishes,
Giving me a name I do not need.
I am not saying that I am perfect
I am far from it,
But I know what I am,
Beautiful in heart, mind, and soul
I have emotions
I have thoughts,
And though many have tried to steal it,
I have purity.
Names cannot steal this from me,
Only I control what I am.
You may be able to hurt me,
But there will be
People to help me fix those hurts,
And one of those people is
Me.

Copyright Heidi-rose I. Creuizger

About the poem

I thought it would be neat to give a mini story behind each piece.  "So This is Life" was written my senior year of high school.  I was in my Lit class and we were doing various exercises, as we did every day.  That day I was in a typical high schooler "mood".  I don't remember what the exercise was, but this was the result.  I remember hating it but I read it out for the group anyway.  There was a pause and then people said "wow. That was really good".  I've had people tell me that this is what they see as sort of an iconic piece of mine.  I still have trouble seeing it as there are pieces I've written that I like MUCH better.  But an artist is never the best judge of their own work.  A lot of the thoughts and images were things I was seeing around me.  The datebook being scratched was the classmate next to me, they had these little scratches on what looked like a new datebook.  The lunchbox was what I used as a purse back then and people kept asking where my Twinkies were, I used to say it ate them.  And I have NEVER understood why manufacturers put those little holes in shoes.

So this is life

 “So this is Life”

All,

All was going down

Yeah

Like a heat wave on a traffic conductor.

You fill up the gas tank

and scream at the lunch box that ate your Twinkies.

Nobody noticed that you darkened your hair

So you lash out to the freak who’s next to you

and whisper

“Yeah this is life.”

So do you want to fuck?

Or do you just want to bump and grind?

There’s safety pin tracks on your arm

It hurts so much

You don’t wanna move it

But you’ve gotta.

It used to be a razor you know.

Right after you shaved your legs.

You used to cry to the death angel.

Your best friend tried to hold you

They tried to push death away.

This is life

Yeah, well,

this is life.

You wear your name tag at home

and you dress down at church.

You never knew Christ had a first name,

Daddy never told you.

Your date book is scratched too,

The latch is new.

Your pencil lined notebook’s splashed with your blood

You hold your pants up with a piece of cow.

The holes in your shoes are supposed to be there

still they let in the cold

and wet.

your shoelace never does get tied.

Light and dark make no difference to you.

You walk around screaming at the stoplight

that won’t turn green.

The walk signal’s broken.

True life is really down.

This is life

Yeah, well

This is life


Copyright Heidi-rose I. Creuziger