Night Wanderer

Night Wanderer

            She lay still next to him; his warm long body nestled between the lavender sheets. His soft calm breaths fill the room. She rests her head upon his chest but her eyes will not yield as she tries to join him in peaceful dreams. She gets up quickly bouncing like a sparrow across the bed to the freedom of the carpet. Blue and deep it swirls like an ocean she must cross. She pulls on a long sweater and walks languidly to the next room guided by a stream of orange that spills through the window onto the floor. Without thought she pries open a rickety blind and looks at the fuzzy halo that lights the night. Her mind bathed in colors.

Explosions

Explosions

He spoke to her in explosions. His words like crazy firecrackers popping around the room. “Wanna go bowling with me?” “Wanna go grocery shopping with me?” She knew very little about this boy except that he mispronounced her name and made strange comments about her paintings. She was always so startled she loudly squeaked back “No!”. One day she waited locked out of a building, freezing. As she stood up to leave who should walk up but him. Her hair freshly cut and her body adorned in a black leather jacket, he looked right at her. His face slipped into a Cheshire cat smile and he purred, “I like your hair”. She stammered an awkward thank you and followed him into the building; they had never been alone together. She began to get out her supplies to begin to paint; the building was so silent. He said nothing, wouldn’t even look at her. She watched him walk into the bathroom and shut the door. Then she waited and waited. Twenty minutes later, he came out. 

Micropoem: Blind

Here is a mircopoem I wrote for my brevity class with Dr. Correa-Díaz:

Blind

Faces fade to puddles

patches of color

shirts, skin, hair

fuzz and glow

as they radiate into space

blended like halos

into cream walls

My Hill

My Hill

The home I grew up in, in Kennesaw, is situated in a neighborhood built on Pine Mountain. When we first saw the house with the realtor my Mom looked through her future bathroom window and saw my little brother Gage scaling the orange dirt hill in the backyard and nearly had a heart attack. In comparison with our former home in flat Houston Texas this hill was an enormous adventure.  We climbed it and explored the woods. Around the bend of the hill we found a creek we loved. We created all sorts of games for the hill violent and otherwise. My middle brother Austin used to ride down it using his bubble butt like a sled. I did not participate in the most violent of hill sports, called King of the Hill. That game entailed a man on man wrestling match to see who could push the other off of the hill. I did however throw many dirt bombs (which are just big dry clumps of dirt).

            As a young teenager the hill’s meaning changed for me. It was no longer a place of adventure but of solitude and escape. I was battling my introversion pretty hard back in those days. Whenever I was forced to talk to a loud person or order pizza on the phone I would have these panic fits. My parents worried and pushed wondering how such a strange bird would be able to interact with the general population on her own. They would say “Sydney how are you going to do mission work if you can’t even talk to a stranger on the phone?” I would cry and tearfully shout, “Moses had a speech impediment!” Then I would run to my hill and sit under my big half-dead tree. When I looked out I could see the trees and down across my whole neighborhood. I felt safe in my solitude and I would cry alone until I was calm.

            I went up on my hill again today and tried to look out on my former world. I stood by my dear tree and discovered my view now obscured by a mini forest of young pines that have been growing for several years now. Peering through these young trees I wonder at how much my hill and I have changed and grown. What was once a giant mound of Georgia clay is now a young forest green and lively. I no longer need to run away from pizza men and loud talkers (while I still may not like them). I have learned how to teach and to express myself, to act and think with confidence. Then I think maybe my hill and I look a little different but maybe we are really still the same. My hill still has dirt that is cold on my butt when I sit down. Birds still sing up there and soothe my heart. The sun still shines down and paints its golden streaks into my dark strawberry blonde hair. And I am still a girl who runs away from life to sit alone on a hill.

Now and then

Now and then 

lying awake 

I just want someone 

to tell my thoughts

when night has come 

and music plays softly 

from my laptop

to lull me to sleep 

To share a joke 

tell about a movie 

or simply to look at fondly 

smiling sweetly 

at a face beautified

by the feelings

in my heart 

 

Haiku

I made a bet with one of my professors that I would write 5 Haikus. I used to always shy away from Haikus because I felt that they restrained my expression. Throughout writing these though I discovered that it could be a rewarding a poetic form that is perfect for expressing a variety of emotions, thoughts and experience.

Bright winter sun glows Golden hair shimmers and flows Numb fingered walk

Luz media pálida Con los árboles baila Abro mis ojos

Por qué me miras Con los ojos grandotes No se qué hacer

Bathtub drains slowly As pink legs stretch out and drip Incendiary thoughts swirl

Orange light refracts As streams of black water flow Asphalt bathed new

Insomnia

Insomnia

I've never been a person who had much trouble sleeping. In fact in general my sleep problems have tended to lean more towards the side of narcolepsy than insomnia. I have fallen asleep in more church services, long classes, and car rides than I'd like to admit. And I am one of those classic nodders when I fall asleep in public. Like those stork toys with the hats that dip their beak into a cup, I lean forward and snap back for several minutes before someone pokes me. At one time my near narcolepsy almost cost me my life. I was driving home from a long escape weekend at my parents. I was on 316, which all Georgians know is the most monotonous stretch of highway on the planet, when I lost consciousness. It was late afternoon and the sun was still up. I was only 15 minutes out of Athens. I had been singing extremely loudly to the radio the whole way, keeping myself active and alert. Then a song came on I didn't care for and I shut my mouth for the first time in an hour. Within moments my lids were heavy and I awoke to the alarming bumps of my car drifting into the median of Georgia 316. Shocked and terrified my right arm ripped out a correction to my trajectory of doom. Unfortunately, as I had always known driving was not an instinctual gift for me. I overcorrected and my red Toyota corolla spun out wildly back into the road and across both lanes. My legs felt numb as jello as I swung like a lifeless rag doll, helpless to change my own fate. My little plastic vehicle slammed into a tree, by grace or luck I was not hurt. The car had spun so that the trunk of the car was stretched around the tree instead of the engine. I got out slowly, an elderly man came up to me concerned and inquisitive. "You were texting weren't you honey?" "No sir I fell asleep at the wheel". I walked around like a zombie trying to gather the pieces of my car as if I could put them back on.

Recently while preparing for my masters exams I developed my first real case of insomnia. I had experienced little bouts of it on special occasions growing up, but always as part of joyous anticipation. Christmas eves for me were magical nights of tradition and joy but rarely full of sleep. I would lay in bed next to my sister and hallucinate reindeer noises or the light of Rudolph's nose in the distant night sky. For many years the first day of school produced the same effect for me. I would lay in my bed anticipating the new sliver of my life story which was about to start. My outfit for the next day perfectly laid out with matching shoes and a coordinated makeup plan in mind. This time was all together different. I knew my time was running out so I filled all moments of the day with information and analysis, hoping to over prepare and conquer my dragon the classic middle child way. Underestimate your skills and over prepare. Every night I lay in between the aged soft floral peach sheets on my bed to no avail. I rolled from side to side in fetal position, then I would lay face down in the pillow. I would even lay flat as a dead lady placing my hands on my hip bones that protrude when I lay down, no matter how many stress pounds I put on. I have spent all my life listening to things as i slept to keep my mind from being frightened by the miscellaneous sounds of night. I put on my Tina Fey audiobook (which i know by heart basically) for several nights with no luck. Finally following my mother's advice, I tried to sleep in silence. Never has my mind or imagination been more active. I would start by wishing it was morning so I could go ahead and eat my raisin bran and get to work. Then my mind slowly drifted to nostalgia mode, as I imagined all the boys I have recently cared for. I even danced beautifully with one in my mind (something I have never done). I remembered the sensations of their presences and then the sadness of their inevitable exits. My mind eventually floated on into its meaningless night track and I slept for a few hours. It's funny that it took insomnia for me to truly experience the beauty of daydreams. Doors that opened back into my past, and painted with my feelings scenes more lovely and less real than their realities.