Gem Reflections- Part 1

Dreamt I had a knife collection

Stabbed em all into a white wall

the one I always stare at

when waiting for the callback

-the knives spelled out -abundance.

I want to be happy

like that lady who

wears

green

every day,

dyed her hair green-

decorated her apt. green-

A fuckin genius.

Sometimes I think I’ll go

all green too

A side of me is allegedly daunting to many

mysterious-deep eyes that hold secrets

The other is dreamy & unavailable

naïve-lets love consume her-falls in love with a serial killer

–Balance

–Consistency

–Control

–Patience

–Respect

Foreign words in this chica’s dictionary

________________________________________________________________

I started the poem off with a dream that scared me at first, but then led me to ask myself the million-dollar question. What will make me happy? How happy do I truly want to be? I then thought of the green lady that went viral. She wore a smile I’ve never seen on my face before and I know I want THAT. I want to try to be as happy as the woman who wears green every single day because she loves it that much. One of the things I love the most about myself is the fact that I am… a Gemini. That mixed with the diverse encounters God has led me throughout my life has shaped my twin and me to be like… my third stanza.

Thomas Benke: Looking Around In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott, in the Chapter “Looking Around,” says this: Now, if you ask me, what’s going on is that we’re all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another. Otherwise we’d all just be barking away like Pekingese: “Ah! Stuck in the shit! And it’s your fault, you did this …” Writing involves seeing people suffer and, as Robert Stone once put it, finding some meaning therein. But you can’t do that if you’re not respectful. If you look at people and just see sloppy clothes or rich clothes, you’re going to get them wrong. She goes on to speak about empathy for other people and also, as an extension empathy for yourself. So, in a sense as you try to write believable, relatable characters, you will come to forgive people their trespasses—because no one believes they are the villain of their story, so you have to write “bad,” or “evil” characters from a point of view where they rationalize what they are doing in such a way that it is the right or only way they see is possible. By extrapolation, then, if you begin to forgive and withhold judgment from your less-than-desirable, or annoying characters, perhaps you can extend the same courtesy to yourself and forgive your own trespasses and sins. This, for me, starts to enter the realm of “writing as therapy,” and though I am a firm believer in that—I practice it to this very day—I think I would caution anyone who thinks that simply writing through things is going to lead you to a place of light and love. I am not saying it can’t by any means. What I am saying is I have wrote through my thoughts and my problems and my desperation and depression for decades and I still had enough baggage on my shoulders to supply an army platoon with rations for a year. In any case, when thinking about craft, it is very important to step into the shoes of all of your characters, especially those characters that you see as antagonists and villians. I believe there are very few universal maxims in writing but one thing is virtually certain: every character you write is your version of that human being. Confucius said “everywhere I go, there I am,” and that is never more true than when you are writing. So if you are writing a character that is distasteful to you, it might be effective for you to ask yourself why that is the case. I wrote a blog for Obscura last semester titled, “The Puppy Had It Coming.” The gist of the article was to pose a puzzle to writers. How can you write a scene where an adult human kicks a puppy across the room and the reader at least understands why. I am not saying there is any way to justify the action or for the readers to be on the human’s side unless they are sociopaths. I am saying you need let the reader know how dark the place is in the character’s mind that he is capable of doing that.

Gem Reflections- Part 1

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