How many days does it take to know love? It's almost an unanswerable question. Some think they know; after all, they usually are hopelessly in love. Just that word, love, is so many different emotions tied together, yet that is the actual essence of love, not really knowing how it feels, but instinctively feeling and knowing it. I guess you could say some of us have known love, sort of, but often it is mistaken for lust, two completely different things. By common consent, you cannot know love without lust, which usually makes any situation worse, by throwing in that unnecessary complication. It's weird how when things fall appart, that the one you "love" and who knew you almost better than yourself ends up hating you or vice versa. The numerous tales of the ex-boyfriends and -girlfriends, best-friends-turned-enemies, and estranged family members, are usually the ones you knew and loved the best.

SNAPSHOT

I was born and babtized in the old ways, half-forgotten and forbidden. All my relatives and a few trusted friends appeared for this momentous occasion. My mother's father, Alan, presided over the rituals as Head Priest. The great hall of our manor, filled with dancing shimmers of color from the pure Myrounian light filtering in through the stained-glass windows high in the walls, showed the smile and grins shared by the whole collection of my family. I was carried by my cousin Alexis, dressed in an elaborate cloth-of-silver robe, and set upon the altar for the cerimonial creatin of a new Star.

My Happy Place

Written August 23, 2006 in class.

ONE DAY
My life goes on. I live. Mother and Father fight. He yells and she just sits there, her eyes spitting sparks almost real enough to burn the hardwood floor, and yet refusing to look up or make any sound for fear of getting hit. We're all like that too; me, Abby, and James. Father shouts, we look down and stay quiet. It's no wonder we find Mother alone in thier bedroom, lying there, her unfoucused eyes glazed over, a weird slackness to her features. Tightly wound around her upper-arm is a bright pink bandana. We know better than to bother her now; this is her only escape from her abusive marriage. Abby follows suit with her own escape of razor blades, glass straws, and little bags of that hellish snow-white powder. James leaves to find solace in the bed of his girlfriend. I myself lock the door to my room and induldge in rainbow-colored pils with comical names.

ANOTHER DAY
Mother got taken to the hospital this morning. Father hasn't been home since last night. Abby found her at 3 in the morning collasped on the floor, not breathing. I called 911. Everyone is gone. -snapshot- I went into my parents room and frowned as I walked through the door at the mess and the smell. Clothing strewn all over, a sharp odor that could have been rubbing alcohol, the tools of Mother's heroin bliss, and the telltale scent of marijuana. -end snapshot- I shoved her incriminating items into a sack and pulled out the secret dresser drawer. I noticed with disgust Father's personal stash: a collection of whitish-yellow chunks and a small glass pipe. My eyes blurry with unsheld tears, I flushed it all down the drain. Father already had enough poison in his blood without this. I retreated to my room again to search for something, anything, to distract my mind from this living Hell. I found something sufficient: orange BiC lighter, red and blue-swirled glass piece, and sticky greenery, all locked safely in my box.

SOME OTHER DAY
Father hasn't been heard from in 4 days. Mother is still in the hospital, but getting better. The doctors give her medication to keep her from her cravings. Abby has a job and can foot the bills until we know what's going to happen. James shows up every now and then with red eyes and reeking of liquor and in a bad mood, uncaring as to what will happen to us. He got even angrier when he saw my dialated pupils and smelled the stale smoke clinging to my hair. I'm past caring what he thinks, the stupid hypocrite, coming home and telling me I can't do what he's been doing since the age of 13.

I Go Back To October 2005

I had to write a poem based on a picture from my life for AP English 4, copying the tone and form of a Sharon Olds poem, I Go Back to May 1937.

I see them arund the fire,
I see Anthony try to control it,
flames lick around the dry stick,
the bark falling into the powerful inferno,
I see me with an ignorant grin,
my world still happy and untouched,
the cool October breeze washing over all of us,
we don't know it's about to get worse,
we are naive in our own minds.
I would say Stop! but how else will we learn?
I would say Jonathan's the wrong one,
he will bring nothing but misery,
you will do things never done,
you will cry, you will ache,
you will want to die.
I want to go up to them,
on that dark October night,
looking into those innocent faces,
wishing they would understand. But I can't.
I need that pain, I need that suffering.
I watch the events unfold with
drunken parties, floating in the clouds,
and nights of pure ecstacy.
What will happen will happen,
and I will tell about it.