Cycles

Part 1: Asleep

The scolding tone of the alarm, like an irate parent,

Commanding me to rise out of sleep, 

Signaling the start of another day. 

Awake, asleep, awake, asleep, 

Fluttering over two mental states as my eyelids flutter open and shut, 

Until finally, I'm awake, 

Reluctantly pulled from my solemn slumber.

Awake, but unwilling to pull myself away

From the sweet embrace of my bedsheets.

Awake, but uneager to rise and silence

The electronic screams by my side.

Awake,

But still asleep.

Still asleep,
Yet as if tranced, my legs
Stuttered and shambled away from my pleasant puffy platform,
Somnolent and stiff as unoiled hinges,
Dragging me away from dreamland,
And into the frigid reality of awakening.
Still asleep,
Yet autonomously, my arms
Tipped and created a cascade of cereal,
Emptying into a porcelain basin,
Drowned out by a river of snow white milk.
My hands, driven by forces beyond my control,
Force feed me bland, tasteless grain
While my mind hovers,
Soaring over ethereal fields and iridescent oceans,
Exploring a world of its own,

Exploring a world better than my own.

Part 2: Nightmares

I cautiously step through the blue iron gates,

In hope that the world will not find me.

Boys in groups and girls in cliques like separate states,

And for once, I believed they won't mind me.

But soon after the calm of thinking I'm free,

The relief is removed, stolen by names

Fired like verbal cannonballs, burrowing past my skull

Into my psyche, shattering my confidence

And turning my self-esteem into piles of debris

As the shame,

The shame onset by the echoing laughs and mocks

By the asympathetic crowd around me.

Once more, I am the center of attention,

Though I dream it were not so.

But if attention were inevitable,

Then I'd much prefer it be acceptance,

Not the scathing rejection and isolation

As my peers use me as a scapegoat for the bad times,

A lingual punching bag for the good,

And as an involuntary clown for the rest.

Restrained in social chains,

Unable to fight back in fear of worse humiliation

Yet those unbound refuse to lift even a finger

To aid me.

I'm truly alone,

A mountain amidst an ocean of hate,

Slowly eroding as day after endless day passes,

Until at long last, it's eroded into grains of sand

Forever drifting beneath the ocean floor,

Forgotten.

Part 3: Awake

Even the sun,

With its infinite heat,

Eventually sets.

Even stars, with their brilliant effervescence,

Eventually fade.

Such is true for all things in life.

Good things, bad things, all must come to an end,

Abrupt or smooth,

Suddenly or unexpectedly,

Sooner or later.

Yes, even mountains must crumble,

Flowers must wilt,

And beacons must dim,

But so too, must furious fires turn to life-giving ash,

Raging rapids give way to gentle streams,

And blind anger dissipates into tolerance.

Though at times, the future may seem bleak,

And one may be holding on the last strands of hope,

Remember that all things

Must come to an end,

Soon too will your suffering.

For fires fade in a day,

But a mountain stands for millennia.

Author's Note: I am so sorry for being so late on this new story. I know it should have been published on Wednesday, and it probably should have been longer, but I got way too preoccupied with a school project that I had to finish at the last minute. Please forgive me for the delay, if my stories are something you guys look forward to. I'll try to make sure it never happens again.

Anyway, coming back from writing the mini-musical from last week (which, judging from the Analytics, barely anyone read), I realized the problem. I can't compose music, and having characters express their feelings through already-composed tunes means that I'm essentially "lyric locked," meaning I have to follow the song's rhythm and rhyme. And since I have to follow a basic structure, I was limited what I could get the characters to express, which is probably the main reason why last week's post was so bad. In the outline, I had distinct traits for each character (which I won't go into here), but I feel like I wasn't able to express their traits well enough through the songs alone.

However, I really liked the idea of character emotions being expressed through stuff they write and say. And since I'm horrible at writing natural sounding dialogue, I thought "Hey! I should make them write poems... somehow." And thus, this was born, from the backseat of my parents' car on a long drive from Orange County to San Diego.

If the story's a little confusing, it's basically a person who goes through bullying every day of his life. The person (gender unspecified) hates being bullied, even going so far as to rather live in his/her dreams instead of the real world. Then, on this particular day, the person has an epiphany that pain is far from permanent. I know I don't usually flesh out the story in here, since I'd much rather put the entire story up for your interpretation, but I feel that it might be a bit hard to understand this week's story if I didn't, so here it is.

Also, if you hadn't noticed, I've finally added an "Ask Box" to this blog. Feel free to send me general questions, send story ideas, and genre fusion challenges my way!