There Is Always A Bigger Fish

The water stretches out in all directions, flitting, glittering, and changing. It goes on, and on, and on. Its surface littered with the dots of otter head and birds, until it clashes with the incoming fog. The two battle, wave after wave pouring in, but the fog is relentless, calling to its fellows for reinforcements from over the hills. The mighty ocean stands no chance. The otters slowly disappear, searching for warmer waters. The birds fly away, circling high over the invading forces. The fish stop jumping, protected below the surface, hiding from the oncoming chill. But the fog has not won. Slowly, a new player enters the field, literally burning off the fog. At first there are only small cracks of brilliant light, but they grow larger and connect, and the fog crumbles to the power of the sun. However, its triumph lasts only so long. Sure as the tides the moon rises to the occasion, shoving the sun back after the fog to disappear behind the mountains, only to give way once more to the sea and the fog.

The Story Continued

Hey guys,

So I was informed by my very encouraging father that I have utterly failed at blogging. i.e. I have to write more, and post more in order to keep all of you interested in following something that started out as an easy way to stop Mom from asking me for different things that I had written to show to her friends. This was supposed to be easier, but I suppose, like most things in life, it is not what I expected. In attempting to create an escape from any obligation to the things I write, I have instead found myself caught in a net of continued service to the words bouncing around in my brain. And all of this sounds so much more dramatic and unlikable than it really is. I enjoy writing, so perhaps I should instead thank my loving mother for helping me to find an interesting, if common, way to release the letters.

So, with all of this in mind, I can inform all of you that I have, contrary to parental belief, continued to write. However, it has yet to be unleashed into cyberspace, and instead resides within the protective binding of my notebook (which most of you have probably seen me with at some point or another). I hereby promise to pull the less-confusing-and-sucky random pieces of writing and plop them into Melly Land to frolic and be happy, and for all of you to read and (hopefully) enjoy.

Hope all is well,
Mel

Running From Emotions

Have you ever driven down an empty country road at two in the morning? The windows are rolled all the way down, as if the wind itself could carry away the emotional pressure. With the turbulent all-consuming storm raging inside your body, you'd expect the music to be blasting: hater, anger, love, and sorrow thrown in with the bass to be blasted into eternity. It's not like that. Instead, the music remains low, a gentle hum to drown out the oppressive silence. Memories flit across the windshield. It's characters are ghostly, there for only a moment before they fade into the black, a part of the emotional well outside your mental box.
It can be a heady experience. Time, just every once in a while, slows down. It lulls. Sorrow can appear to stop the clock, in the same way happiness can sometimes race against time and win. Perhaps therein lies the reasoning behind sorrow. In a world where time runs rampant, tossing around humans like dandelions in the breeze, sorrow alone possesses the power to hamper the clock, pulling it back and reminding it that no matter how strong you are, there is always something out there that is stronger. More powerful. Look at our emotions. How powerful are they?

Life

(In loving memory of Edward Feigon, my Papa, written June 8, 2009)

I saw my life today.
I saw my life flit by at the race track.
I saw it turn its head and grin.
I cried out, and took off, desperate to catch up.
It giggled, taunting me.
It shades changed as it rounded each bend.
First buckskin, then bay, then back again.
I watched in horror as it stumbled, almost fell.
It limped for a half mile.
But just as I caught up, it sprinted off again.
I watched my life leap obstacles.
This one small, the next one bigger.
The final one looked to large.
But my life counted strides, it prepared.
And in one desperate move, hurdled the jump, and trotted off, tired.
I stopped trying to catch up.
I stood and watched as my life cantered away,
Soon out of my line of vision.
I turned.
I noticed flowers in the center of the track, glittering brilliantly.
I bent, and plucked one from its fellows.
As i straitened, the flower in my hand,
My life trotted up, nudged me in the shoulder, and stood quietly by my side.

Timelines

(Written at the end of Junior year)

The night wasn’t any different than any other. I was sprawled out in my room, the ceiling blurring as I procrastinated on the growing mountain of homework that lay in a jagged line across my desk. The was phone pressed into my ear, my screaming anchor to reality. A friend chatted incessantly. Some boy was just the perfect person and oh my god she had to have him and did she even know his name?
I was called down for dinner. The blue of the carpet was dulled by years of abuse, streaks from riding down them on the back of the ginormous red dog I had insisted on naming blue. There were stains here and there, a testament to the fact that ours was not a show house. People lived and moved and breathed here. They were human, made mistakes, held a glass just wrong so that a sprinkling of wine managed to actually touch the carpet. A drop of blood in the middle of the living room from that time when Mom was cutting my nails. I didn’t even notice the pain until she murmured “oops” and I looked down to find my finger gushing a red river that consisted of one drop of my life.
Dinner. Monotonous. My place, my brothers, my fathers, my mothers. “How was school?”
“Fine.”
“Learn anything new?”
“Sure.” Droning, and half coherent, but tonight wasn’t like that. Instead, “father... moving out… we’re not happy.” Broken words to match the breaking heart. Chili turned to dust. It piled up, clogging all my thoughts and sensations. My throat contracted, desperately attempting to digest, as my mind flew in a million different directions. I needed to be gone.
“You guys handled that one great.” My brothers words floated after me, drowned out by the gunshot as the bowl hit the counter. Out. Out. Out. Images flashing, the slideshow on steroids, as picture after picture slipped through my memory.
The little girl on the swing, mind-warped from the idea of a loss of parental figure. “Would you guys ever split up?”
“No baby, your dad and I are very happy together. You don’t have anything to worry about.” The sun beats down on my already tan skin as the swing creaks on its hinges and I fly higher and higher, with warm comfort below to catch me should I loose my grip and fall.
“Sometimes things don’t work out, but that doesn’t change the way your father and I feel about you.” The comfort slowly slips away, like the grains of sand used to when I was that little girl at the park. Some things don’t work out. Most things don’t work out. I never wanted that much, just an intact family there, the steady pole to hold onto throughout everything.
Anger and bile rose like the tide as another memory pushed past the rest. Hurt, accusations. Shouting fills the room, the sound cramming itself into the corners as it flees from the words sure to follow. Emotional daggers, so sharp and strong that they could pierce the strongest armor, and bring a person to their knees from the pain, begin flying. “You are just a suck up little bitch.” We limp off the battle field, weak kneed and bleeding, to lick our wounds and forget the past.
Pain. Whirling and spinning, as I groped at the phone. My one time attachment to reality became an escape portal I was desperate for. I had to go. I had to leave. Too much hurt. On overload I whirled as -
Thunder claps, roaring as the flash immediately answers. My dad and I sit, staring up at the infuriated sky, watching as lighting illuminated the street, throwing into view the silver of a scooter before the figure was swallowed by the blackness once again.
I barrel through the door, the already cracked white pain shattering just a little bit more in my rush to explain it all. “Mommy! Mommy! I have something to show you!” I grab her hand and tug, impatience making me forget that there were bones and mussels attached to my handle. I hear laughter behind me as she trots after my excited little legs. “Mom! I want to show you something.” It wasn’t my voice. It was to boyish. My hold is ripped away as she turned and disappears into my brother’s abyss.
I stared at the door handle, terrified. Hurt. Reality. Truth. It lay on the other side of that splintered protective wall. The metal was cool beneath my fingertips, slippery. Groaning in protest, the doorway widens, and I am forced to face my most desperate of fears.
Five years later I discovered the truth: my life is not a continuous timeline but instead it is made up of a multitude of flashes and snapshots, hours of boredom on end, epiphanies, and emotions that manage string together in a jumbled mess that I am somehow supposed to sift through at the end. There are defining moments, and random bits and pieces that are remembered because of a long lost effect they had on me, but when the truth comes down to it, I am simply my memories, my experiences, and my emotions.

Society Is Bipolar

Emotions.
Running, pulsing, pushing, grabbing, torrent emotions.
The teenage brain.
A stew of hormones, each one competing, desperately needing to be on top.
The things we feel are no jokes at all.
They remain real, painfully so, keeping us awake at night and crazy during the day.
Wanting to be mature,
Desperate to stay young forever.
Too much fat, not enough abs, my hair’s not right.
Pages of the magazine ring criticism as it rains down like confetti.
Glossy, sleek.
Ribs are the new cloths with hands to cover the things we don’t want others to see.
Sex sells and spreads like fire in a gasoline-drowned forest.
Popularity.
The line between slut and well-liked blurs, thinning like a stretched rubber band.
Will it snap?
Love, hate, anger, pain
Al accessible, all combustible.
Bi-polar means nothing in the world of swirling troubles, and everyone’s caught the disease.
Adults tell us we’re over dramatic, or peers tell us we’ve become much to static and teachers tell us we must be more dynamic.
Can’t I just be me?
The me is too plain, too boring, too much and not enough
I blush at the wrong time, laugh to loud, and my shirts aren’t low cut enough.
Thoughts and feelings and emotions.
Bitch. Slut. Whore.
The words splatter the walls like gore
And I just can’t take it anymore
No more.
But how do we make it stop?

Are We Insane?

(Written midway though Junior year)

This rush of emotion sending commotion floundering and flickering through my brain.
Have I gone insane?
I pride myself on the lessons learned so hard by others,
But this fanatically extreme world seems to smother
The senseless mutterings of an understanding mother
Always ready to give another
Truth.
Stuffed in the brain blood-splattered by the pain is a comically deranged me.
Striving desperately to become the stupendously confident self I was always supposed to be.
But that is not I.
I resides in the time between times.
In a world of hideous hidden shadows and fears
Forever pushing near,
Grabbing at the tattered remains of what used to be held so dear.
Am I now your greatest fear?
Or am I instead the truth hidden in the deepest part of your human closet?
Push aside the dresses and shirts, the pants and skirts, and there I reside.
There is no more reason to hide.
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself"
The jeering crowd erupts into cheers, finally prepared to shove aside its fears.
And then they awake, trembling and fake,
Aching from the rush of emotion which sends a commotion floundering and flickering through their brains.
Maybe we are all insane.