Wednesday, June 30, 2010

My Poetry

Please Don't Leave Me

The Brakes of Time

Poetic Depression

I am not Fat

Growing Up

Lean on Me

This is a story I have been working on for about fourteen years now. I would really like some feedback. This is just some of what I have written so far. P.S. The idea that I had for even this ever gets published is for each chapter to go back and forth between today's time and the memories.

It has been fourteen years and a whole century later since my world was shaken upside down and sideways. I will never forget the day my best friend died and all of the events that have happened since then. I was very young, 13, at the time and looking back I realize that a lot of my own thoughts will nothing more but a jumbled up mess. I think back to that time in my life with fondness now. I have a better understanding as to why we must suffer before we can truly understand the gifts we have been given.


I, myself, have been truly blessed in the last fourteen years. I am married to the most wonderful man I have ever met. I have known the joy of giving birth to two wonderful children. However, though all of this joy I can not help but wonder where the mentally comes from we people decide to take their own lives. To this day I wonder what kind of mother Erin would have been like. I wonder what kind of man she would have married. I also know that many of the mistakes I have made in the fourteen years since her death she would have tried to stop me from making.

True friendship is very hard to find and even harder to hold on to. There are many obstacles in the way of staying friends for a lifetime. I believe I can count the number of friends that have stayed with me though these tough years on one hand. However, it has been said that it is not the quanity but the quality of a friendship that makes it divine. I truly believe this. Erin was my best friend. We were as close as sisters but without the fighting. We had many wonderful experiences together and when those came to an end so suddenly I emerged from it a different person. My thoughts and values were forever shaken and anybody that interacted with me after that faithful time new not the person I was before, but the person I was afterwards.

Many of the people that knew me though my grief were silently, if not, greatly confused with a few gestures of such. I celebrated Erin’s sixteenth birthday at her grave with a party, complete with a cake and everything. Those that attended with me did so because they cared, although many of them thought I was just mad. I felt an overwhelming desire to have Erin with me though every milestone. I would talk to her or write her letters with every gift or tragedy that the good Lord decided to give me. I would introduce her to my new boyfriends, and my new friends. For the first few years I would take a trip to her graveside at least twice a year, her birthday and the anniversary of when she died. I felt a huge hole in my heart for a long time. It will never completely go away but I now know that I must move on. After all, it was the fear of such that made this wonderful young person decide that she had to breathe her last breath.

I stay in contact with her family a bit. Things have greatly changed for them too. Erin would have a younger brother and sister. She would be an aunt to two wonderful children. Her nephew is very proficent in the art of karate. Her older sister has settled down in her own life and more then likely looks just as Erin would had she gotten a chance to age. Methods of communication have changed since I was a broken teenage sitting by the phone. Where as Erin and I had to keep in touch with the phone or visits to each other’s house, now I can just see updates about her family on Facebook or though email. The things she never got to see still catch me breathless from time to time.

So I write this, reflecting on the fourteen years that have come to pass. I seed to remember the shattered dreams of a teenager while embracing the blessing I have had since then. I have learned many things through my journey. I have learned how to keep a friend. I have learned how to listen to my friends and family. Most of all, I have learned how very lucky I am to still be on this earth with all of those who love me. Some teens will not get to feel this sense of gratidue for they too will decide to take their own lives. It is my hope that somehow, I can remind them that there are things to live for. Whether it be friends, family or even as simple as a favorite cartoon there are many things that a lost teenager needs to remember when they feel that there is no way to move on.

When I was thirteen I woke up to her my mother utter the words that my best friend had committed suicide the night before. I remember being stunned and a bit confused. Up until this point I honestly had no idea what suicide was. After a few moments I realized that this word, as strange as I was to the concept, meant I would never get the pleasure of seeing my best friend alive again. I saw tears in all of my family’s eyes and felt very much alone. Of course, like any understanding parents would, my mom and dad told me I could stay home from school that awful October morning. I choose to go to school. Why? I believed I had a great mission to tell all of those that were close to her. I believe at the young innocent age I was at I thought things still were not real.

Going through the motions at school seemed to make me numb to the idea of grieving. I told quite a few of people about the sudden change of events. Quite a few of my fellow classmates decided to leave school with their parents escorting them out of the building with loud sobs. I saw the strain on every parents face and heard the cries of others, yet for some reason tears did not reach me. I could not bring myself to cry for the great friend I had lost. I felt some sort of guilt for not expressing the feelings that were hiding inside, but a lot of me questioned those events. I wondered inside my simple teenage mind if this situation was only a dream and/or a prank of some sort.

Surely Erin was going to appear beside me and tell me it was all a joke of some kind. It was all a misunderstanding and they had the wrong kid. She was suppose to show up to the party I was having at my house that following weekend, ok I got the joke now. Halloween was in two days and that was the whole joke. Ha Ha! When I saw her again I would tell how not funny this whole thing was. She would have to call many people and apologize for being so inconsiderate. Really!?

Of course while these thoughts swam in my head, I was watching more and more students leave school from the shock of the news. For some reason the reality of the situation did not seem to be hitting me. I spent my entire school day trying to reach another friend of mine. The one I had become close to since Erin had moved to a town about twenty minutes away. Although she had moved away about a year and a half ago we had kept in touch just like always. We had spent many nights on the phone and still went to each other’s house for sleepovers. I had developed a great relationship another friend named Amanda. She was my hometown friend and Erin was my out of town friend. They were my two best friends.

I spent the entire day trying to reach Amanda to tell her what had happened. Looking back at this about fourteen years later I realize that while I was doubtful about the truth of the claim of Erin’s death I was still telling everyone the news. I realize how silly this sounds now. I found out from the school staff that Amanda had stayed home sick that day and between every class I tried to call her at home. The line was always busy each time I tried. I don’t remember much else about that day. I went through the day like any other day not paying much attention to anything that the teachers were trying to say. I think a lot of them, including that teacher that Erin and I had shared the year before, were just wondering why I was still at school.

I remember getting picked up from school by my father and not saying much in the car on the way home. I had every book with me; I had not gotten any homework accomplished that entire day. The weight of all of the books gave me the physical weight on my hands that I carried inside of my chest. My soul was hollow but had a huge rock resting on it. I felt like my body was empty but full at the same time. An incredible urge to throw up waved upon me and I quickly swallow really hard and dismissed it has carry such a heavy weight of books.

As I walked into the front room, I noticed the paper was sitting on the dining table. Unknown to me, my mother went out to buy the local paper to keep the obituary announcement. I took a simple glance at the opened paper to see a picture of Erin right beside her name.



Erin Lyn Melvin

(1983-1996)



I quit reading at the second line where the year was presented. I remember then I had yet to contact Amanda and felt like I had to right then. I picked up the receiver to the phone in the kitchen and dialed the number I had been calling all day long. It rang and I took a deep breath and thought about what I was going to say.

“Hello,” the voice on the other end said. It was Amanda’s mom and I had to keep myself from just blurting out the news and hanging up.

“Hi, it’s Holly, can I talk to Amanda please”

“Hi Holly, sure no problem”. There was a moment of silence as I heard Amanda’s footsteps coming to the phone. I could just picture where she was coming from. I had been to her house numerous times prior to this phone call. For a moment my thoughts went to her dogs wondering if they were outside since I did not hear them in the background. It is amazing the type of thoughts you have when you are trying to avoid a conversation.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Not too much. Hey you weren’t at school today.” I decide to prolong the conversation just a bit more no quite sure what I would say. How was I going to explain the situation when I myself had no idea what exactly was going on.



“Yeah I was sick today.”



“I tried calling you all day and the line was busy every time.”



“That is strange; I guess my mom could have been on the phone for a bit. Wait a minute did you say you were trying to call all day? Why? What is the matter?”



“Uh, Amanda, are you sitting down.” As soon as those words left my mouth I could not help but realize how ridiculous I sounded. Everyone knows that when you are asked if you are sitting down that bad news will always follow.



“Why? What is wrong, Holly?”



“I need to tell you something.”



“Ok, What?”



“Erin committed suicide last night, she is dead.” I said straightforward. I hear her grasp for air and I later found out that she had to concrete not to drop the phone. She had not been sitting down until I said those last words. I hear tears well up on her side, and I had to fight back my own tears. I wanted to cry but I did not want to cry over the phone to someone that was having a hard time too. Amanda did not need my grief right now. She had her own thoughts to process through. “Look, I will talk to you later. Are you ok?” I asked wincing at the last question hoping that she would let me go with realvity little problems. I had so much homework to do I could not spend very long on the phone. She assured me that she would be ok and that she understood I had to go.

First Random Story

It was a new day. It was a new school. She walked through the halls with a schedule in hand and a look upon her face that could only be of a freshmen completely lost. It was a sophomore boy that took her under his wing. He was tall and handsome. The type of boy that normally would never talk to such a fragile girl, but there seemed to be something pulling him beside her. Something like a gravity pull, or perhaps a magnetic attraction. Whatever the reason he found himself wanting to scoop up with lost girl and fly away with her. He wanted to take him into his arms and soar the clouds with her, to help her escape the hassles of everyday life of a high school freshman.




As he turned his head to see her enter the hall, feeling a nag in the back of his head the pulled him away from his conversation with his friend, his breath was lost. He got a bright glare from her long red hair, that he was sure would make any sunrise jealous. It seemed to circle her face in flowing loose curls. It was like a blanket of security perhaps that color was meant to scare off any predator. The fire color could be used as a visional remember not to touch, like the animals in the wild that use visual clues to tell the outside world how dangerous they were. However, he was not scared. He was not a predator but a protector. Her pasty white skin against such a loud color of hair as astounding. He felt his heart skip several beats and all of a sudden everyone else was gone. He could imagine them in their own world, him and this red haired stranger. He did not know her name, but yet he felt like he had known her for years. Something inside of him made him glide to her side. Without another word to his friends that were encircled by his locker he was beside this stranger in a matter of moments.



She seemed very startled when he suddenly appeared beside her. She had been looking at her schedule and the map of the school trying to figure out exactly where she was and where she had to go. Not of a moment had she noticed anyone else in the crowded hall. She had become part of her own world. A world of books and hallways. Her thoughts involved only the safest place to escape the scene of the hallway. She longed to be inside the next classroom where she could sit in the back of the classroom and disappear. She thought if she was lucky she could go unnoticed for the rest of the school year when her family would move once more. She was sure they would be moving again, they always moved every summer. Her father was a solider in the army and the job took her and her family away too many countries. The school she stood in right now was just another stop on the long journey until she was an adult and could make decisions for herself. She wanted to be lost in the crowd and does nothing that would make her miss this stop, so when he came up behind her the defenses went up instantly.



He was tall, probably a foot her so over her and his dark hair was very short with a short spike on top of his head. She would have found him handsome and could have gotten lost in those green eyes if she was not so convinced to leave quietly. He tried to engage her in conversation. It was mostly about helping her but she had heard this conversation start more then once. She was the new girl, like a shiny new toy to a boy that thought he was in love. Love from first sight was never something she believed in and many high school boys tended to use that line very often. He did not go to that line right away which was quite refreshing for a change. He did stumble over simple words trying to help her find her way. She giggled a bit inside herself. It was quite funny to see such a young boy try to impress a girl. Although she was the same age as her fellow classmates she felt so much older. Her past had given her more insight into the real world then any teenager should be exposed to. She felt a little sorry that his honest and innocent soul would one day be tainted by the experiences that he would have as an adult. She had seen war and famine. She had been in the countries where children of her age had to grow up much faster then they should. Many times she had even had to learn to survive on her own.



Living in the United States, for what little time they may be there, gave her a chance to be a kid. Unforanutely, a new setting can not erase emotional scars. So there she was, a wandering freshmen to everyone else, but a grown women inside. She always struggled with the idea not to share her advice of adulthood with the young kids she encountered. She wanted to save many of them from knowing lose and the emotional upheavals that came with growing up. If she could she would scoop them all up in her arms and tell them about the ways of the world. She would tell them all about the sickness that reigns in many countries. She would tell them all about how many dreams they have right now would not come true. She would tell them about the realty that is the outside world. The building they all stood in was like a prison. A safe prison. It gave the false hope that their lives would always be great and what they wanted them to be. This adorable boy that had come to her ’rescue’ had no idea where he would be in ten years. He had no idea of all the pain he would experience. All she knew was that she did not want to be part of that pain.



He tried to ask her if he could help her. For some reason his voice seemed to crack and his words were very fumbled. He did not know what was coming over him. He had never felt this way about anyone before. His composure was usually very cool and smooth. He found it even harder to talk to her when she seemed to be ignoring, or maybe just not caring about what he wanted to say to her. He wanted so bad to tell her about the feeling he had inside of him. He wanted to say how he had never felt this way before, but he was scared that she would run off and he would never see her again. Knowing her for exact five minutes or so already told him that he would fall apart if she would to leave him. It took all the strength he had not to take her into his arms and wrap her in them. He wanted to pull her tightly against him. He wanted to fell her heartbeat next to his. He wanted to spend every moment of his very existence next to her. However, as the first bell rang and the lost red haired stranger found her classroom, he remembered where he had to be. It was so hard to leave her side, but he knew that in just one short hour he would find her again. He did not know how, but somehow he would find her.



She was very grateful to find her first class shortly after he appeared beside her. Having to see him struggle much longer would have made her breakout in a giggle. He was cute and seeing in uncomfortable was a bit amusing. She walked into the classroom to find it not very unusual. It was painted with an olive green color, many sciences believed this color help students study better. She sighed heavily. If only the same people that painted this room understood that the fact that there was building that students could come to learn made the students learn better. She sat herself in the back of the classroom, just as planned, and waited for the bell to ring. One more hour of torture after another. She knew that torture was not really the name for it; she knew what true torture really was. This did not compare. There were, however, many other places she would rather be then trapped in the green walls of building. She looked out the window longing to be in a field of wildflowers running free. Free from all thoughts and all people. She could spend many hours, perhaps even days in her imaginary field. She could sleep under the stars with no fear of bombs going off in the distance. She could leave her physical and emotional self vulnerable to the outside world. In her paradise there was no one else. She had spent many hours in her fifteen years imagining her world. It was a world of peace and happiness, where the hand of some glory miracle wiped away all of her memories. It was the place she could feel at home, a place she would never have to leave.



She found a teardrop falling across her check as she thought of her special place. This was often the case when she was imagining the place where she thought she truly belonged. The field was not in a country but off in its own distance. It was not ruled by presidents, martial law, or any other type of government. It was a place of freedom. She knew that she would never find this place, but sometimes just thinking of this place gave her heart some peace. Sometimes it made her sad, for the longing of some place that was like this made her even more aware of her situation. If only…this was the thoughts that often crossed her mind. She did not how that sentence would end but she knew it would be in happiness. She would find a field of wild flowers, mostly purple. Purple was her favorite color. There was a tree that stood in the middle of the field where she would often fall asleep, or maybe absorb herself in one of the many books she was currently reading. Her books too gave her the escape that she longed for. She liked books of fantasy where the biggest problem was where to hide the dragon. The only problem with books is that they too had conflicts, although most of the time they were resolved in a good way. In a way that made everyone grow to be better people or animals. Good was known to tribute over evil very often. This was not the case of the reality life she lived in. This was the false truth that the fellow classmates that were entrapped in the ugly green room believed in.

He was there after the bell waiting for her. She was very surprised to see him there. She did not know where he had come from after the first class of the day, but she had not accepted to see him there. For a moment she let the surprise spread onto her face. She tried really quickly to disguise her feelings. It was too late he had seen the smile that came across her face. It had lit up him like a Christmas tree. He was glad to see some emotion on her face. Even happier that it was a good emotion that he believed he had brought on himself.