ART

by Inkwriter and SarcasticCarousel

4738921784873294037

48930218-4

584920585

3859034842990382

481329048218

48493084

Poetry seems to be something creative

But perhaps a string of statistical numbers can be poetry, too

493028159843-5

849302895134

4389210348-3-21

Untitled

by Inkwriter

sometimes words are too much.

all you need is a sigh, a blinking of metal eyes in the dark.

morse code, maybe. or a lost language

sometimes words are too much.

often, music is enough. blowing in with the wind, the weather.

no one knows where it comes from. but it’s perfect. like the hair of the one you love.

sometimes words are too much.

the squealing of pigs instead. a hug from a dragon. rose petals, white ones. he blows them from his hand, with a gentle breath into the faces of the attackers.

hold your breath, now.

sometimes words are too much.

the rhythmic ticking of a clock, the rustle of paper.

your partner in crime proceeds to throw anything green into the fire.

the cameraman waits for the on air sign to blink on.

sometimes words are too much.

too much to handle. the blatant, anonymous text against a white background.

you click the small rectangular button resembling a trash can

but you cant erase the words from your mind.

sometimes words are too much.

too powerful.

too strong for us to use.

it would be impossible to expect that we would all respect their power

and that is what upsets me the most.

words are what i used to create this.

but it was too much.

it could have been less.

simpler.

but would have that been not enough?

must i disarm you?

trick you into a simple fanfiction chain?

when will you understand?

that sometimes words are.

empty

my fortune cookie tells me that the value of a cup lies in its emptiness.

the bluebirds sang and wrappers crunched.

Homer’s brain told him it was gone fishin’ and he hadn’t any right to think;

my brain is childish and runs around in circles. we are following

a tinfoil path of snags and rumples.

life is that way, you tell me, of course; because this nest

of dictionaries and reassurances is not-to-be-disturbed fragile.

give it a stir and it disperses.

my fortune cookie says that there is a moral to this story if only i try hard enough.

but the cookie was crushed beneath someone's shoe.

~juniper

Estella (Part VI)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is the final section, part six...

Part VI. How To Change (See Your Lies)

So much time has passed, and so much has happened to me. Change is hard; change is never absolute. I decided to change, but I consistently relapsed into was before. I made mistakes.

Bentley Drummle was the biggest of those mistakes. After my confrontation with my mother, I promised myself that I would be different. Then I went back to Drummle, back to my misconceived perception of love. I told myself pretty lies and I pretended that I was happy.

Everybody gets angry sometimes. He never means it when he says awful things. I couldn’t think of an excuse for the other things he did, so I ignored them.

I also lied to myself when he died. You aren’t relieved, I comforted myself. You’re grieving.

Lie.

After him, I was alone for a long time. I was positive at first that that was a second mistake. I was sure that I could never be alone, that I needed to find a husband, that I wouldn’t blossom fully unless I could fall in love.

Lie.

Maybe my blossoming would come when I found love, but my prolonged isolation was what made me capable of falling in love. In all that time by myself, I was forced to keep myself company. In doing that, I became better acquainted with myself. I was able to understand exactly how I needed to change. And I made those changes. 

Today, I live in a small, elegant house, simplistic and poised - no longer condescending or spiteful. There is a small closet in the back of my house that contains an ugly old jewelry box, overflowing with gaudy jewels. Sometimes, I look at those jewels and remember when I used to wear them. A voice, one bred of the mother that wanted me more than I wanted her, sometimes says to me, You were better then. More beautiful. More strong.

But I recognize the all-too-familiar lie before it can deceive me, and I never put them back on. I know better now.

Today, I am happy that I made mistakes, because ‘mistake’ is just another way to say ‘a lesson learned’.

Today, a single flower in blooms in a vase on my windowsill. I put it there, with help from a boy I have known for forever.

He forgave me. And I forgave myself. And everything was alright.

- CinnamonGinger

The Legend Of Freshman Pond' and Other Fables From The Kingdom Of ConVal

-inkwriter

Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away-- oh, to heck with all that. So there is this school called ConVal. It’s in a small town that no one has ever heard of so it doesn't matter. The reason I'm writing this story is because we all needed an explanation for why freshman are often thrown into a pond behind the school. That’s why I was summoned from the depths of hell with dark magic: to tell the story of Freshman Pond. I am actually an exchange student. So far I am enjoying your little uplandish providence of this dimension.

*clears throat*

It was a dark time in the kingdom of ConVal. The pond of drainage, which offered peace and acted as a wellspring of magical powers, was plagued by a large, magical fish. This fish’s name was Toby, or -- no it wasn't! It was… ummm… well, I actually don’t know. Just because I’m a demon from hell doesn't mean I know everything!!! Oh, sure, have great expectations for the demon just because hell has really good public schools. Okay. Anyways, so this fish just shows up one day and is all like, “FEED ME SERFS!!!”

The Pope of ConVal is like, “No way, man. We’re using those serfs. We kind of need them.” And then the fish is like,

“IF YOU DON’T FEED ME A SERF EVERY YEAR FROM NOW ON UNTIL THE END OF TIME THEN I WILL DESTROY YOUR KINGDOM!!!” And then the Pope wa-- Hey! Don’t just walk away while I’m talking!! What, you don’t believe me!? You think I’m crazy?! I was there, for Satan’s sake!!! I saw the whole -- NO! NOW YOU LISTEN TO ME!! DON’T MAKE ME SUMMON THE BATSNAKES!!! YOU SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW AND LISTEN TO MY STORY, DANG IT!!!

So. Like I was saying before I was so RUDELY interrupted, the Pope was all like, “HA, HA, HA!!!! You’re just a giant fish!! You don’t even have legs!!! How are you going to get to the kingdom?”

And then the fish was all like, “B**ch, I got legs!” and he jumped out of the water and began to run towards the school. Now, the Pope was pretty shocked, seeing as Darwinism had not yet been invented at this time. So he started running after the fis-- what was that? Oh, ha ha. Very clever. Yes, the fish’s name was Darwin. That was cute. Good job.

SO ANYWAYS, the Pope is running after the fish and shouting, “WAIT! STOP! WE’LL FEED YOU ALL THE SERFS YOU WANT!!! JUST DON’T DESTROY THE KINGDOM!!!”

And the fish said, “Very well, lowly carbon-based being. I shall not destroy your kingdom.” And he skipped back down towards the lake of drainage and plopped down into the murky depths, awaiting his yearly meal.

So that is why, year after year, the council of ConVal (often referred to as the football team) yearly tosses a serf (often referred to as a freshman) into the magical pond of drainage.

FIN.

*(That was not a pun)*

Estella (Part V)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is part five...

Part V. Jewelry & Hope; A Message For You

You did not teach me right.

You said things, and I believed them. You taught me about love and marriage and men, and all of it was a lie.

You ruined me.

You gave me jewelry, and at first I took it and wore it and I thought it was beautiful. I thought I wanted the jewelry, I thought it was better than the flowers that the other girls got.

None of those girls wear jewelry like I do. They are happy, they smile inside and out. The flowers they grow, planted from the seeds of the flowers their husbands gave to them, thrive in vases on their windowsills. But my flower is stunted. At first I thought it was just different, and in a good way. Better. More mature.

Now I see that my flower cannot blossom because it grew from a plant that is sickly and diseased, a plant that passed its sickness to the young flower growing from it.

You forced me to wear the jewelry, but it is too much, too heavy. It weighs me down. My head sinks under the weight, I cannot raise my eyes and look at what else I could be. My hands are laden, dripping with jewels, and I cannot lift them.

I do not understand how to take the jewelry off. I have changed my mind - I want flowers now. I realize that I could have had them all along, but you stopped me. ‘Don’t play in the dirt with the flowers,’ you said. ‘Ladies don’t need flowers.’

The fire burns behind you as I tell you this. The flames leap and flail as if they are the two of us, one attacking the other, pouring out resentment as the other cowers and tries to make it all fine.

You cry. You apologize to me, your tears sliding down your face as if they know the way very well. And they do - they have traveled that path many times before. Your tears do not sway my heart. I have cried their equals, cried them because of what you have done to me.

Maybe you wanted to help me. Maybe you wanted to teach me to avoid that which destroyed you. But all you did was wreck me just as completely as you are wrecked.

A boy stands with us. We have known him forever, and he is the reason why I share with you my resentment. He scares me, and I am scared at my being scared of him. Scared enough to realize exactly what is wrong with me, and exactly why.

If he did not already hate me for the way you prodded me into treating him, he surely hates me now. And that makes me hate myself, and it makes me hate you. Because in a lot of ways, it is your fault that he must hate me, and I don’t want him to hate me. I think that he is the sort of person who would make me smile not only on the outside, but on the inside as well, if I were ever to dance with him.

He would give me flowers. He tried, a long time ago, and I ignored him. Now I have to hope that he’ll ask again someday; I hope that he will help me take off all this jewelry, that we can plant flowers together.

You do not know what hope is. You left hope, neglected whatever shred of it you had until it withered away, and you cannot help me. I don’t even want you to try. You did not teach me right, and now all I have left is hope.

Goodbye.

- CinnamonGinger

T.H Wam's Random Thoughts

Installment #1:

Warning: You might be greatly confused by anything that is written beyond this point. There might be dark, sad, or somber thoughts. It could also be a blank place, a white void, complete nothingness. Speaking of which, it is impossible to imagine nothing, because it is impossible for your brain to process the thought of itself not existing.

Thought 1: God doesn’t care. Or he/she/it doesn’t exist. The evidence of his/her/its not caring is exemplified in the fact that world hunger exists. If god cared, he/she/it wouldn’t have created a surplus amount of beings. He caused strife between these beings that he created. If he cared, there would be a certain amount of beings, and this total amount of beings would never change. Birth would be simultaneous with death. Also, why would he/she/it make death. It must not care, because why would god create such a great and wonderful thing as life and not perfect it into immortality. He makes the greatest thing ever, and its not permanent. It would be like if Van Gogh made the starry night on a piece of paper that disintegrates after a week. “Look, Picasso” Van Gogh would say, “I have created one of the best pieces of art in the world, But it will only exist for 168 hours. After that, no one will know the genius of my creation because it simply won’t exist.” Possibly god is a jerk. He gives conscious thoughts to a thing that dies. It fears death with all of its being, but it is impossible for it to achieve immortality. Even if there were no actual causes of death, any plants or animals physical body would eventually fall apart. So humans are tortured every day of their lives by the knowledge of their own demise. But, God could also not exist. If he/she/it didn’t/doesn’t exist, all of my previous arguments are irrelevant. End of thought 1.

-T.H. Wam

Estella (Part IV)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is part three...

Part IV. Choosing

People return to you at the strangest and most inopportune times. People you thought you had forgotten. People you forgot to remember. They hear about the new people in your life and they question you. They ask you the questions that you don’t think to ask yourself.
People like that - like him - make you reevaluate yourself. People who you never realized meant that much to you, and suddenly, they become all you think about and it scares you. He scares me.
It’s not that I think he isn’t safe; it’s that he shows me a different way of living, and it takes me away from what I know. He makes me re-think everything.

At first, he showed me a humble lifestyle, no grandeur, no extravagance. And I scorned it. I laughed at him and his coarse hands and his thick-soled boots.

Now, he shows me that maybe love isn’t all about money and status. Maybe marriage isn’t about taking advantage of other people's assets. Maybe being a lady isn’t the most important thing to be. Maybe there is more to loving somebody than I know; maybe I don’t know anything about loving somebody because I’ve never experienced it. Maybe I’ve only imagined love where there isn’t any.

And then he leaves me and I think about how I think when I’m around him and it’s so different from how I think when I’m not around him and I’m feeling (is that what this is) and if it is feeling and it happens when I’m around him then am I feeling for him and this is not what I know I don’t know what to do I have to act like I know but I am just stumbling through each day blind - I’m so confused.

And then he’s back, and it happens again. Then I start to think again. I become more and more muddled, these new notions creep around the edges of everything I thought I knew. I am a flower, and my petals are just beginning to open, sunlight beginning to seep in and make things clear.

I think I know what I want. I think I know what’s really true. I have to change, but I don’t know how. I’m angry at myself for being the way I am, and I wonder why everything is so hard.

Now I remember. I remember who taught me to be a lady. I have made my choice; I need to go home.

- CinnamonGinger

Estella (Part III)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is part three...


Estella - Part III. The Things Ladies Do

     It is a curious thing, when one stands in the middle of a crowd and feels completely alone.
     I watched the dancing couples twirl about, the sliding of their feet against the floor complementing the twinkling ballroom music swirling through the room. They looked so happy in their togetherness, so unafraid.
     I stood near the wall, wishing desperately that I could slouch against it and relax, but knowing that I could not. A lady maintains perfect posture at all times, even if she is uncomfortable.
     Earlier, I danced with Bentley Drummle. We waltzed and glided and followed all the motions. Perhaps I looked happy on the outside; perhaps all the others are only smiling for everybody else. Maybe underneath they wonder if maybe they should be smiling on the inside too. Maybe I'm not the exception to the rule.
     But never mind that. A lady does not worry herself with trivial matters. She must focus on marriage; she must marry well, or she will have no future.
     I have seen what happens to unmarried ladies.
     I hold my dance card, rows of names in my neat and practiced handwriting, stacked one on top of the other. I danced with many men tonight, but I cannot remember who each of them are. I don't remember their personalities or their faces, or what we discussed as we rotated and revolved. All I retain is their names, thanks to the cardstock reminder creasing in my hand. One thing I do remember is anxiety. Tension. 'Will this one be the one to break me beyond repair?'
     No. I won’t think like that. Ladies do not dwell on the unpleasantries; I will not dwell on the misery and loneliness that I do not (I don’t I don’t I don’t) feel. I will not dwell on the ways in which love can ruin you.
     I remember time in a timeless room, splashes of jewels, a future promised and prepared for. My mother taught me well. She isn’t my mother by birth (that mother is unknown to me), but she raised me. She taught me all I know. She explained to me the ways in which the world works; she has allowed me to stray from the pitfall-laden path of searching for love, shown me how to be successful in marriage. How to gain, or, rather, how to cut my losses. That is how ladies find love; they find those who will bring them money and status.
     The other young women ask why I dance with Drummle. They say that he’s self-centered and easily angered, indifferent and unromantic. Their boys give them flowers, but I don’t know why they like that so much - they’re just plants. Ladies like me don’t want flowers from their courtiers; they want jewelry.
     I decided that I did enjoy dancing with Mr. Drummle. Really and truly. He is affluent. His family is respectable. I think this may be love.

- CinnamonGinger

Estella (Part II)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is part two...


Estella - Part II. The First Boy

There is a boy.
He is new, and different, and so very far from me that I am unsure of what I am to do with him; why has Mother brought him here?
He is a he. A him; a boy.
Mother warned me about boys. Boys and their promises of love. Boys and their murmured confessions, the impossible offers they procure out of thin air, and she says that I’ll believe them if I am unprepared.
So Mother has prepared me. I think perhaps this Boy is practice; a way for me to experience the lies with Mother standing by to aid me, to remind me of the danger. 
We play cards, but only the simple games. The Boy doesn’t know the strategic games that Mother and I play. He hasn’t been taught our ways.
Mother lets me wear her jewelry, and she whispers things in The Boy’s ear. The Boy is quite infatuated with me. I know because Mother told me so; also because he follows me the way a dog will follow a hand with a treat. Watching, waiting. Eager and hopeful.

---

The Boy has been with us for a very long time. I led him on and pushed him away (always according to Mother’s prompting), and now I am through with him. Mother is very proud of me. She has told me so. She says I am ready to be a lady; ready to go out, ready to make more boys fall in love. Ready to find the one who will bring me the most, and ready to marry him. 

I am to go to London soon. I am to stay with a friend (Mother’s word for the vultures who lurk about her, snapping up any scrap of possible inheritance and shooting jealous looks at me (for my inheritance is already insured, as I am Mother’s daughter)) of Mother’s, in an estate just outside the city. I am to attend dances and be outfitted for new dresses; I am to show Mother that she has taught me right.

Mother has given me her jewels to take with me to London.

I grew up playing with her jewels, trying them on and pretending to be who I am about to become. Now I wear them, just as Mother wore them, and I take the carriage to London, ready to be married.  

- CinnamonGinger

Estella (Part I)

Okay. The first thing I have to say before you read this is that I didn't write it because I have a love for the novel Great Expectations. Far from it. Honestly, I found the book to be boring as crap; I just really loved Estella’s character. Then I had this project assigned to me in English class. We read The House On Mango Street, and we were talking about a protagonist’s journey to self-discovery, and we had to choose a protagonist from a novel we’d read earlier in the year and write a bunch of vignettes about them. So, I picked Estella. And I wrote these vignettes from her point of view, and I used literary devices and crap (using literary devices was part of the project) and I just really like them, okay?! So, if you’re like me and you were forced to read Great Expectations, I hope you read and enjoy the only Great Expectations fanfiction in existence. Oh, also: SPOILER ALERT. I follow Estella through the entire plot of the book, so if you don’t know how it ends and you don’t want to know, DON’T READ IT. Okay. Cool. Enjoy. This is part one...

Estella - Part I. Forgetting

Today, I planted a flower. I’m not sure what type of flower it is, and I won't know for sure until it’s fully grown. But I have high hopes for it.

I was sitting outside with it in the garden. I patted the crumpled furrows of dirt arranged around each of my fingers in the places where I rearranged the earth. Waiting underneath them is the seed that I placed, slowly absorbing trickles of water sent from above and ever aspiring to reach the world above.

Dirt formed gritty crescents under my nails, but I didn't care. My flower was more important. My hands, delicate and uncalloused and bare of the wrinkles that come with growing up were laced with mud, and flecked with tiny pebbles.

Then Mother saw me from her bedroom window. And she sent the servant to come and get me. And she made the housekeeper bring me a new dress and new shoes and new stockings, ones that weren't spoiled with soil. Those she told the laundress to wash clean. After that, I went upstairs to sit in Mother’s room, and I listened to her as she explained to me what it means to be a lady.

I must sit up straight, keep my hair tidy, cross my legs when I sit (at the ankles, never the knees). I must wear clothes appropriate to my station in life (which is better than those who were born common, those who have rough hands and thick-soled shoes and coarse shirts because they can’t afford anything better). I must train to be beautiful, wear the scents and paints and jewels that make me irresistible to boys. But I must resist the efforts of those boys to woo me, to distract me from the real goal of marriage; money. I must be the temptress, not the tempted. ‘Love is a lie,’ Mother says. ‘I know. I believed in love and it destroyed me; my daughter, you must do what I did not. You must escape my dreadful fate.’

‘How, Mother? How will I ever remember all of the things I must be?’

‘By forgetting, Estella dearest. By taking all you knew before and replacing it with proper and elegant and poise.’

I must pay close attention to Mother. She is already a lady and so she can be my teacher. My example. She is what I have to remember, and my flower is what I have already begun to forget.

- CinnamonGinger

Up.

Look Up. Tell me, what do you see?

The sky, you say.

Well, who decided that? Who decided that the Sky is Up? When God made the world, did He just say, Oh, i like the endless void over my head, so i will make it heaven and heaven will be good? Is that what happened?

Yes, you say. Or maybe you say No. No, it was not God who made the world and said the Sky will be Up. Maybe our whole existence is one big mystery. i mean, do you know why Sky is Up?

No. That’s what i want to know. Why is Sky Up?

That’s what i just asked you, you say. You are annoyed.

Well now we are just going in circles.

Yeah.

Maybe we should ask a different question.

Okay.

Why is the Ground beneath our feet? Why is heaven Up in the Sky and why is hell Below Us? The damned descending into the bowels of the earth and all that jazz.

Well i don’t know. Ask someone who does.

Okay.

I turn to Someone. Someone knows Everything and Nothing.
Someone says, i know one thing: i know nothing. That is what Socrates said, years and years before either of you had cause to wonder.

Someone, will you tell us why Up is so important?

Important? Really? How do you mean?

You have a lot of questions for Someone who knows Everything, you say.

Didn’t you hear Someone say she doesn’t know Anything? i say to you. To Someone, i say, People Rise in society and heaven is in the Sky and rankings are from Top to Bottom. And how could anyone have the right to say whether Up is better than Down?

Why don’t you ask Anyone? says Someone.

Okay.

Anyone walks in and he says, i am the people. Do you hear? i am not Someone, i am not No one, i am the people. The people are why we are here. All of Us. And you are the People too.

So i am the one who decided that Up is heaven and heaven is good?

No. Of course not. But you choose to believe it.

~juniper