I remember composing an album after a traumatic loss. I usually turn to my writing to touch the depths of despair, but this time I reached for the piano keys. My fingers stumbled over them, slow but steady, eventually finding a melody congruent to the tempo of my heart’s desires. It’s never been my favorite, butContinue reading “The Heart’s Melody”
Tag Archives: writing
The Zanzibar Hotel Excerpt
We’re lying in the hammocks, The night air is thin but warm. My drink pours all over my leg, leaving a sticky trail of sour juice. We’re laughing until we’re not. Drunken laughter grips my brain, Possessing my entire body. O glances over her drink, her body rocking the hammock. The lights fill the undersideContinue reading “The Zanzibar Hotel Excerpt”
Summer Nights Poetry
Time’s Sorrows
Five in the evening comes no easier than the hours before it, Wandering around, Treading on bare earth, Searching for worms, And waiting until we’re gone. Life is long, my mother always said, The days stretch into eternal swathes of time, Silky moments that appear to resist slipping away. I realized years ago that thisContinue reading “Time’s Sorrows”
Thoughts from the shower
The clockwork gears unraveling beneath my skin. A labyrinth, a lifetime in the making, is burning. The absence of your nearness has abandoned me. I showered today for the first time since. And I lie in the sheets, like my skin, that have been scrubbed clean. And although the warmth is all mine, I can’tContinue reading “Thoughts from the shower”
The Bird and The Storm
The tears fall, and once again I don’t understand. It’s like the skies prophesized, the unravelling is inevitable. My love, my darling is like an exotic bird. He flies free, quick, never looking back. Loyal, steady, but fleeting, Drinking the orchard’s sweet drips. I am a hurricane, The tempest itself, Bitter and crackly. The torrentialContinue reading “The Bird and The Storm”
On Outrunning Destiny
It appears that I am fated to become my father, to embody his bitter years of tragedy as my own. I remember the time before it, like a faded photograph that no longer reflects reality at present. In the pursuit of rejecting the stories we are to become, we all think we are special becauseContinue reading “On Outrunning Destiny”
Banana Island
In the daytime, we bask in the sun, but the rays are harsh in this swampy corner of the river. It rubs our skin red and raw, but in two days’ time, the desirable brown will develop like a roll of film, and the water is murky and warm as we braid thread, waiting forContinue reading “Banana Island”
Confinement and Redress in Native Son
Bigger’s acts of aggression can’t be redressed by prison time, because they are ultimately a symptom of confinement. Throughout the novel Native Son, by Richard Wright, the protagonist Bigger suffers from excessive pressure from external influences. These external pressures are initially proposed as vague, fleeting senses of awareness of a truth so large it seemsContinue reading “Confinement and Redress in Native Son”
Religious and Punitive Parallels in The Color Purple
The role of religion in The Color Purple (1982) is a means of subconsciously maintaining the hold of carceral logic on characters. The Colour Purple, a novel by Alice Walker tells the story of an African American girl named Celie living in rural Georgia early 1800’s. The novel, told in epistolary format, details the abuse and lifelongContinue reading “Religious and Punitive Parallels in The Color Purple”