sad.

2 notes

this was a challenge. the first body of text is exactly 250 words and the second exactly 60. they were both inspired by the third, written by Ernest Hemmingway, that is exactly 6 words long.

The Murphy household, once filled with joy and excitement, was now dark and silent. Mr. Murphy put bibs and baby toys in cardboard boxes, his cheeks wet, while Mrs. Murphy sobbed in the parlor. Her frail fists clutched a pair of handmade booties her mother-in-law had spent days on. She was careful to keep the pink embroidery away from her tears to keep them in good condition.

Mr. Murphy closed the last box and sat with his wife. He softly stroked her still swollen stomach, sharing the overwhelming pain waving through her. They rocked back and forth for hours, weeping in harmony until the phone finally rang. It took a few moments for Mr. Murphy to register the sound, and when he finally did, he dragged his feet against the Dhurrie rug and picked up the receiver.

“Murphy residence.”

“Hello, Mr. Murphy? I saw your ad in the paper. Those baby shoes are beautiful!” at this, Mrs. Murphy’s sobbing became much louder, almost to a wail, “They’ve really never been worn?”

There was a long silence until Mr. Murphy finally choked out, “N-no, ma’am, they haven’t.”

“Well, now, that is fantastic! I’ll be over to pick them up tomorrow. Is that alright?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The other end clicked, but Mr. Murphy merely stood there, still holding the phone. He dropped his head, staring at his seemingly brand new slippers. He looked around at the oak china cabinet, at the glass chandelier. Mr. Murphy’s shoulders shook with an unbearably wealthy misery.
____________

The Murphy household, once filled with joy, was now dark. Mr. Murphy packed boxes while his wife sobbed in the parlor, the baby shoes his mother had made in hand. He joined her and they sobbed until the phone rang; someone wanted to buy the shoes.  Mr. Murphy’s shoulders shook with an unbearably wealthy misery.

_____________

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” –Ernest Hemingway

3 notes

Donald Glover wrote this and inspired a long rant poem. you don’t have to read it, but if you want to know what inspired my poem, this is it. it’s at the end of the song “that power” by childish gambino

edit: apparently he didn’t write it. his friend or something did. either way, he reads it at the end of the song.

This is on a bus back from camp. I’m thirteen and so are you. Before I left for camp I imagined it would be me and three or four other dudes I hadn’t met yet, running around all summer, getting into trouble. It turned out it would be me and just one girl. That’s you. And we’re still at camp as long as we’re on the bus and not at the pickup point where our parents would be waiting for us. We’re still wearing our orange camp t-shirts. We still smell like pineneedles. I like you and you like me and I more-than-like you, but I don’t know if you do or don’t more-than-like me. You’ve never said, so I haven’t been saying anything all summer, content to enjoy the small miracle of a girl choosing to talk to me and choosing to do so again the next day and so on. A girl who’s smart and funny and who, if I say something dumb for a laugh, is willing to say something two or three times as dumb to make me laugh, but who also gets weird and wise sometimes in a way I could never be. A girl who reads books that no one’s assigned to her, whose curly brown hair has a line running through it from where she put a tie to hold it up while it was still wet

Back in the real world we don’t go to the same school, and unless one of our families moves to a dramatically different neighborhood, we won’t go to the same high school. So, this is kind of it for us. Unless I say something. And it might especially be it for us if I actually do say something. The sun’s gone down and the bus is quiet. A lot of kids are asleep. We’re talking in whispers about a tree we saw at a rest stop that looks like a kid we know. And then I’m like, “Can I tell you something?” And all of a sudden I’m telling you. And I keep telling you and it all comes out of me and it keeps coming and your face is there and gone and there and gone as we pass underneath the orange lamps that line the sides of the highway. And there’s no expression on it. And I think just after a point I’m just talking to lengthen the time where we live in a world where you haven’t said “yes” or “no” yet. And regrettably I end up using the word “destiny.” I don’t remember in what context. Doesn’t really matter. Before long I’m out of stuff to say and you smile and say, “okay.” I don’t know exactly what you mean by it, but it seems vaguely positive and I would leave in order not to spoil the moment, but there’s nowhere to go because we’re are on a bus. So I pretend like I’m asleep and before long, I really am

I wake up, the bus isn’t moving anymore. The domed lights that line the center aisle are all on. I turn and you’re not there. Then again a lot of kids aren’t in their seats anymore. We’re parked at the pick-up point, which is in the parking lot of a Methodist church. The bus is half empty. You might be in your dad’s car by now, your bags and things piled high in the trunk. The girls in the back of the bus are shrieking and laughing and taking their sweet time disembarking as I swing my legs out into the aisle to get up off the bus, just as one of them reaches my row. It used to be our row, on our way off. It’s Michelle, a girl who got suspended from third grade for a week after throwing rocks at my head. Adolescence is doing her a ton of favors body-wise. She stops and looks down at me. And her head is blasted from behind by the dome light, so I can’t really see her face, but I can see her smile. And she says one word: “destiny.” Then her and the girls clogging the aisles behind her all laugh and then she turns and leads them off the bus. I didn’t know you were friends with them

I find my dad in the parking lot. He drives me back to our house and camp is over. So is summer, even though there’s two weeks until school starts. This isn’t a story about how girls are evil or how love is bad, this is a story about how I learned something and I’m not saying this thing is true or not, I’m just saying it’s what I learned. I told you something. It was just for you and you told everybody. So I learned cut out the middle man, make it all for everybody, always. Everybody can’t turn around and tell everybody, everybody already knows, I told them. But this means there isn’t a place in my life for you or someone like you. Is it sad? Sure. But it’s a sadness I chose. I wish I could say this was a story about how I got on the bus a boy and got off a man more cynical, hardened, and mature and shit. But that’s not true. The truth is I got on the bus a boy. And I never got off the bus. I still haven’t.

this is my poem, inspired by that, as well as some things that happened to me.

cowards. all cowards.

we’re talking
we’ve been talking
not really
not face to face
but we’ve still been
communicating.

there’s something you won’t tell me.

it’s been a week
now.
my friends say
you love me.

i know you don’t.

then you type.
hit enter.

four words,
nineteen times
you hit the
keyboard.

“can we be friends?”

and i say
“sure”
because i know
we won’t be.

but what else
is there to say?

and then i’m
crying.
sobbing.
weeping.

but i don’t know why.
because i don’t care.
that’s what i say.
i say i regret you.
you were a mistake.

but one i had
to make.

it’s a month later.
he’s asking me
to be his.
for now, anyway.

for the time we have
before we will be
inevitably separated.

high school drama.

but he doesn’t say it.
he types it too.

i never tell him,
but i think that sometimes…

sometimes he’s like you.

a coward.

afraid to put himself out there.

and this isn’t about
how boys are jerks or
how the internet is ruining romance.

because we’re still together
and i’m happy.

and i can’t say i learned.
i mean, jesus, i had just
turned sixteen.

this is
about cowards.
how i am one sometimes -
how everyone is.

it’s about putting yourself out there.

it’s about how i always
put myself out there.
for everyone.

but now that’s going to stop.
my walls are coming up.

and it’s your fault.

i thought life
was about
being brave.



nobody is brave anymore.

1 note

this is not about me. it is just a sonnet i wrote.

it is so difficult to understand;
however, i know i must deserve it.
forever forced to feel His calloused hand
if i wish to prevent a deadly hit.

daily and nightly, the walls shake with rage:
yelling and slamming, bloody ears ringing.
i am merely a puppet on his stage -
soon in sleep by a rope necklace hanging.

must have done something to anger him so
He would not do something so uncalled for.
He needs me, He says, He can’t let me go.
i grasp this as my skull hits the cold floor.


it has always been because of me.
once my eyes close i can finally see.

1 note

behind thin silhouettes
of bare-branches
above the calm
restless sea.
reflected in your eyes,
it boldly becomes a part of you.
in the blood red canvas
painted with royal cotton
and luxurious diamonds.

slowly falling, it
succumbs to a deep slumber,
meeting itself
at the ends of the world.
two, one.
then none.


all becomes still.
silent.
the naked branches moan in the cold.
the flowing ocean cools.
your eyes,
no longer bold
or bright,
are blinded.


the Sun
is gone
for the
n i g h t.

2 notes

he emanates navy blue words
softly stroking her cheek.
enveloping her with
plush hope.

she drops her heart.
it shatters as
she sees through
his stained glass lies.

he swears he
will fix it,
put the sharp
shards together.

false faith,
spilled wine,
bleeding roses,
he is gone.

he has taken
the best of her
with him.