Freewrites

[Yui-chan]

#22

 

New Age

9 August, 04

 

{Located in the Scarlett Pen for harsh language.}

[Gyrfalcon]

Iiiiiinteresting! I like it, shows that some things will outlive even the cockroach.

[Yui-chan]

Cockroaches.... vampires.... cockroaches.... vampires.... >_

 

Thanks for reading, Gyr.

 

Torn,

~Yui

[Yui-chan]

Holy cripees! It's...

 

#23

 

Knight

written 20 Oct, 2004

 

"You're allowed to fail, you know," he said in that too-gentle voice, crossing toward me from the window. "There's no one standing over you with a sword, no one waiting with their finger on the red button."

 

He only wanted to help, I know, but ... I was too low, too raw. I scoffed, feeling my face warp around a disfiguring sneer. Self-derision is always supposed to be ugly.

 

"No one but myself, you mean."

 

The words were sharp enough that I wasn't the only one they cut. But he's got thick armor when it comes to me; I only saw their effect in the new angle of his chin. It was a defiant angle. My stubbornness alarms went off, and as I felt him take up his sword and shield, I reflected - not for the first time - that this man had come to know me very, very well.

 

Of course, I knew him, too. I watched his eyes as his thoughts skipped over the points that were too obvious to use as a rebuttal: that I was always my own worst enemy, a vicious judge and bloodthirsty jury; that no one could expect to be perfect; that feeling down about my mistake didn't help anything. He knew very well that none of those would stop the internal beatings because he'd tried them all before.

 

So, he shifted gears entirely, leaving the dialogue behind in favor of a sudden attack-embrace. I might have resisted had I seen it coming (I still felt like I deserved some extra misery), but my chance had passed by the time I surmised his new plan. His arms locked around me, a trap of warm flesh that I couldn't hope to escape from.

 

That tender hug of his, so weak in theory, is actually an irresistable force in practice, and he knows it.

 

I leaned against him with a sigh, pressing the sharp ridge of my cheekbone into the pillow of his chest. His softness ensured that my hard edges weren't enough to hurt either of us, though for a moment, I did try. Then his scent, his support and his peaceful presence attacked my anger, dulling the blade of my inner voice in complete defiance of logic. Such insubstantial forces shouldn't be so effective against self-derision steel! It's just not fair...

 

It felt wrong to just forget, but only for the heartbeat it took for him to draw out his ultimate weapon. When he pressed his lips to my forehead, my stubborn urge wafted away like sand in a stiff breeze, leaving me nothing but the residue of irrational blame and a gritty feeling behind my eyes.

 

How can I hate myself when he loves that same self so deeply?

 

He knew he'd won when I lifted my hands and pressed them to his back, cuddling closer. I felt his triumphant smile against my skin - the smarmy twit! - but I couldn't really regret his victory. The dragon was quite effectively slain, once more.

 

After a time, he pulled back just far enough to look me in the eyes, a wry grin twisting his lips. "You're silly."

 

What could I do except pull a face at him and answer, "I know"?

 

And then I gave him a kiss, because, after all, it's tradition that the knight get a favor from the maiden he just saved.

 

[Ayshela]

absolutely beautiful, Yui.

and it's just not fair that that works so *well* is it?

not fair at all..

though it is nice.

[Merelas]

I absolutely loved this... I really did. I don't know why... maybe the analogies. I love analogies.

[The Portrait of Zool]

It's beautiful because it is warm, and it is true.

 

Excellently done, Yui.

[Yui-chan]

#24

 

Affirmation

written 1 December, 2004

 

Time doesn't matter to a colorful dream. Long or short, continuous or broken, it makes no difference as long as that wish is threaded through with adamantine strands of determination and bound in a frame of passion. Glazed on either side by crystalline panes built on the support of friends and family, the thin wafer of its essence is protected from doubt and failure, shielded from the sharp edges of rejection. No matter how Chronos rages at the fragile image within, that dream will never be destroyed; it will never fade.

 

I am so lucky to have two of the three... now, all I need is to forge the impurities out of the alloy of my determination. I must burn away the grains of self-doubt and laziness that weaken the structure and leave behind the kind of perfection that's required to handle the strain of failures and rejections.

 

... and I will do so, because I burn. I burn to make something of this passion of mine. I burn to become the person I want to be. I burn to share what I create with a world that needs something to enjoy. I burn to know that I'm not just typical and mediocre and useless.

 

That is my flame, and as time passes, it becomes hotter and higher and more desperate. It may take weeks or months or years before its power is enough to make my hopes immortal, but that's okay...

 

... because time doesn't matter to a colorful dream.

 

((It's what I wanted to say, yet not... I'm disappointed. ))

[Yui-chan]

#25

 

Telecon

written 7 December, 2004

 

The faceless men on the other end

drone on and on in foreign tones,

their formless hands rifling brittle sheets

and pointing up at a backlit screen.

 

They plop down words on some table top

with reflective sheen and old coffee stains,

and normalcy fades by a swift degree

to jargon codes and to acronyms,

all dressed in the chic office buzz

with bright plumage from their pidgin terms.

 

The plastic box with its errant sounds

makes digital from the distant real

and pipes it in to my coffin home,

where I pretend that its tinny tones

mean anything from so far away.

[Wyvern]

I really like your "Telecon" poem, Yui. I think that it touches upon the topic of phone conversations in an interesting and evocative manner, particularly in the way that it distances the narrator from the speaker at the other end of the phone. Your word choice and imagery in the poem are excellent, and I especially liked the reference to the speakers having "bright plumage from their pigdin terms." I also think the tone of the poem is very well established, as it seems to hint at artificiality and hollowness over the course of its duration. Out of curiousity; was this piece inspired by telephone company advertisers such as those of Telecon? ;-)

 

One phrase that struck me as out of place in this poem was the reference to the speakers placing their words on "some table top," which is a rather vague image when compared to the other sharp details attributed to them. Also, while the phrase "coffin home" is very intriguing and evocative, I was uncertain of its place in the overall thematic structure of the work, and you might want to expand upon the narrators home if you choose to use it.

 

Great stuff.

[Yui-chan]

Wyvie,

 

Thanks very much for the feedback. I'm really glad you like this piece; I've had a lot of troubled deciding what I thought about it, myself. (See? At least I'm consistant... Not only can't I grasp others' non-lyrical poetry, but I can't even quite get my own. ) Your comments are appreciated and interesting to me. I often write with a more intuitive and less cognitive understanding of what each word adds to the whole, so I get a lot out of seeing which ones you key in on.

 

To assuage your curiosity, this poem is definitely the product of a daily staple around my workplace... Teleconferences - phone meetings. I have to listen to one each morning at about 7:30am, and I find it way too easy to disengage from the topic and the conversation and just muse on the philosophy of a 'gathering' where not everyone is actually there. I guess this poem is a result of too much musing at too early an hour.

 

As to your specific points... I actually put 'some' in that line very purposefully (though perhaps not terribly effectively) to try to subtly point to the fact that I, as a listener not actually IN the meeting, have no real idea what that table looks like. The imagery that you liked is actually the part of the poem I was most uncertain about, because it is both realistic and misleading... I think most people have some sort of 'phantom' in their minds to visualize what's going on at the other end of the phone line, but the truth of the matter is that you never actually know the scene unless you are there. It really is 'some table', somewhere, and not a specific table that I know and have seen. Once again... artificiality and hollowness. It's an artificial image that I hold and a hollow reality that I create around the voices.

 

As for coffin home... I really wanted 'coffin office', and I think that would have cleared up your confusion and made the subject a little more obvious. However, that doesn't fit properly into the meter. I'll probably change it to 'office home' or 'office box' when I copy the poem over to my Poetry thread. Do you think that'll make it more fitting and clear?

 

Anyway... once again and as always... thank you for the feedback. I appreciate your help!

 

Thanks,

~Yui

[Wyvern]

Yui,

 

Understood on the incorporation of "some" in the second stanza, and very good point about peoples' visualization of what occurs at the other end of the phone as opposed to the actual ambivalence of it. What I might recommend for the stanza, then, is to choose whether you wish to portray the visualization that people have of the other end of the phone line or to emphasize the actual uncertainty of it, as meshing the two concepts together in the stanza might be what's bothering you about it.

 

As for "office home," I do think it would make things more clear, but at the same time it doesn't seem quite as evocative in tone as "coffin home." Perhaps you could add another line briefly describing the coffin home as a cubicle? Actually, "home" might not be the best word to use to describe an office space, particularly one being compared to a coffin... is there some other monosyllabic term that could be used in its place?

 

Just spilling suggestions... and no problem on the feedback.

Wyv-

[Yui-chan]

I've made some changes and posted the new version in my 'Poetry Collected' thread. I'm still kind of wishing for a better word to use in place of 'home', but ... well, this one struck me as - if not quite perfect - at least better.

 

And with that... the Freewrites project meets its goal. Wow. That's got to be a first for me. >_

 

Any further freewrites I get to create and feel are worth posting will go up in a new thread. Thanks to everyone who's read and commented on any or all of these!

 

Yours,

~Yui