Time as it passes.

the moon will be eclipsed tonight
and I will think of you
of youth and spring
and dew and baseball fields

a comet will cross the sky
and I will think of you
of brevity and intensity
and unfinished plans

the stars will appear like every other night
and I will think of you
and others too
and time as it passes

the sun will rise in the morning
and I will not see it join the day
because I will be sleeping late
because I do not sleep well at night

because I think of you
and others too
and time as it passes




All rights reserved. S.T. 2017

Barbie Doll

The music is too loud
Uncomfortable looks
Random moves by strangers
She looks like she just woke up
Rubs her eyes
It is smoky and dark in here
But really she doesn’t see the lies
Doesn’t open her eyes wide enough
When she opens her mouth to scream
“You aren’t real!”
There is no one to insult
She has fabricated all of it
Just like the makeup she wears
Everything is fake
She portrays some other girl
And wonders why the boys aren’t real
She looks to her friends
But they are playing the same game
And no one ever wins
That boy thinks he has
But at the end of it all
He went home with a Barbie doll

Absence

I've been absent lately,
away from many,
alone,
but not really alone,
just not here.

Not "in the moment",
not engaging,
not giving,
but not taking.

I've been hiding,
in plain sight,
wearing bright colors,
and honestly trying to get noticed.

I've been floating around in my life,
I haven't made a plan and stuck to it in a long while,
I just go with the flow,
but then times goes faster than I want it to,
and before I know, I've been gone too long.

I've been absent lately,
and alone.

I guess I'd better get back soon.
Miss you.

Baltimore

I'm overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings about the situation in Baltimore. I can't understand why people would loot, destroy property, set fires, riot and damage their own home city as some form of protest. They are only hurting themselves. To all the innocent and law-abiding folks that live there and have to endure this chaos, my heart goes out to you. I hope this ends soon, peacefully. Please rioters, go home, be good, be respectful and stop this nonsense.

Bully

So, as my readers may or may not know, I'm an adult. I've been an adult for many years now. However, yesterday I was the target of a bully. That's right, someone acted poorly toward me and said something that made me very uncomfortable. This person was mean to me and I didn't even know them. I made a comment on a post on facebook about a picture of a building that was posted by a preservation society. I thought it was a cool looking building and I thought that if it could be preserved by the company that began in that location and has grown to a major cooperation, it should be saved by them. That was all. I didn't make any political announcements, I didn't say anything controversial. I simply said I thought it was a cool looking building and as a fan of pop culture, historical archeology, and buildings in general there wasn't anything wrong with my saying it. Someone however decided to judge me on this one post. They have no idea who I am, what I stand for, if I'm intellectual, if I'm a nice person. They don't know me at all. But this person had the nerve to post after my post, "You are an idiot." I saw that and was deeply offended. How dare they pass this judgment on me? So, I wrote back, "That was uncalled for, untrue and mean. Why would you act like a bully?" But then I deleted the whole thread. And I know why I deleted it. I didn't want to provoke. I didn't want to "get into it" with someone that I didn't even know on a page that wasn't mine. I didn't want to stoop to this person's level, but now I'm wondering if this means that the bully won? Should I have stood up for myself? Should I have called them out for being a bully? If this little incident is bothering me so much, imagine how it feels when it happens to a child, a teenager, anyone else. We are taught to remember that people that bully are often hurting inside, confused, angry with the world and "acting out" but I looked at this person's page. This was another adult. Shouldn't they have known better? How is the world going to get any better if people can't just be nice to one another and respect each other's opinions. You don't have to agree with me that a building should be preserved but you certainly do have to be nice to me!

It smelled like shit and hot sugared donuts, like whiskey and burning rubber, and the sickeningly sweet smell of infant vomit. It was thick with ash and the smells of burst pipes and carpet burning. But what made it awful, that kind of awful that made you cover your mouth and hope you could hold your breath until you got away from the smell was knowing that there were people in that smell. And fear. You were breathing someone's frantic last moments, their panic and fear, and their aching longing for the ones they loved and the unfinished lives they were trying to save by running harder and leaping down stairs and out of windows and over bodies of others who had already lost. You were breathing those people and it was terrifying. And although you wanted to get away, you wanted to get closer. The streets were closed and the area was draped in yellow tape and only the emergency vehicles were coming and going from the area. Ground Zero. But something inside wanted to get closer. To see it nearer. You could see the sheared building tops, the raw metal reaching into the sky, the smoke that still billowed days later, and you knew it wasn't a pretty place. If it smelled like that why would you want to get closer and see the smell? Why? It was terrifying.

(all rights reserved.)
This piece is an excerpt from a much longer project that I worked on for my capstone project at GMU. It was the account of my visit to New York in October of 2001. I will never forget that smell as long as I live.

Welcome

For those of you who are viewing this little blog for the first time: Welcome!
I tried to add a permanent welcome paragraph to the blog that wouldn't disappear as I added new entries but I am having issues with editing the layout. And so, this blog is mostly made up of musings, poems, phrases and such that have been found on actual bar napkins. I tend to be inspired when I am out with friends in the evening, and I hardly ever have a notebook with me. As a writer, I am blessed with a muse, who comes to me and writes many of these little poems through me. I thought giving her a voice like this would be a great way to thank her. I would like to let any readers out there know that nearly everything here is a one draft creation. I usually just copy whatever I have verbatim.
 At least that is how this blog started out. I've also used it to convey my feelings on a couple of random topics, such as a feeling that the Christmas Season wasn't what I hoped it would be, how people have become rude when walking on campus, and on challenges I've faced while taking classes at GMU.
Two of the stories; A Fantastic Noise and The Little Man, were written in one sitting. They rushed right out of me, but were not written on napkins. They have been edited only for punctuation and spelling. The content is truly one draft creation.
I hope you enjoy this blog. I do welcome feedback!
Have a great day and thanks for reading!
Sharlene