Haikus...

Days at the Beach
Salt is in the air.
Some seagulls steal a sandwich.
Waves crash on my heart.
-Chantelle A.G.


Facebook Chatbox
I’m waiting for you
Why are you not online?
I’ll wait one more hour.
-Chantelle A.G.


You Suck
You can’t say those words.
Never were a proper friend.
I hurt more then you.
-Chantelle A.G.


Not About Me
It was just one drink.
One death stopped two lives that night.
Don’t even know you.
-Chantelle A.G.


Mirrorless
One winged butterfly.
A quilt without a pattern.
Flying in circles.
-Chantelle A.G.


English Major
The English language.
It doesn't always look sense.
Harder than it looks.
-Chantelle A.G.


BFF
Friends are always there.
Lying makes me feel better.
Friends are never there.
-Chantelle A.G.


Cutting it Down
Blood covers their hands.
Love never was the problem.
The tree won’t grow back.
-Chantelle A.G.


Shake Your Tail Feathers
I wanted to dance.
The radio went silent.
Listened to the birds.
-Chantelle A.G.

If life was just a song, I would sing for You...!

I just finished rereading the last few chapters of Just Listen, by Sarah Dessen. I'm not sure what compelled me to read them, but it was really just what I needed.

If you haven't read this novel I seriously recommend it, it's one of those books that scar you with messages and has characters that are so realistic you can almost hear their heartbeat.

I cried the first time I read that book and I just cried again. I don't know what makes me so weak when it comes to literature, but I get so lost in the theme and plot that it becomes a living nightmare. Everything gets so painfully real.

I don't really know who I am and that's why I read; to find myself. And the truth is, every page I have ever read holds a little piece of me, just as I hold a little piece of it.

I want to give life to someone the way the authors I love have given life to me. I want to be able to make someone cry and laugh and think. I want it so bad I can taste and it tastes so ripe and so sweet and a little premature all at the same time.

Have you ever closed your eyes and imagined where you will be in 10 years? Everyone asks me that. Where do you want to be in 10 years? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What's life going to be like for you in 10 years? I'm sick of that question, because I don't picture myself in 5, 10 or 20 years. I don't want to focus on my future - I want to focus on how to get there.

We talked about hope in DeGiovanni's class last year, he said it was "the real killer," that if all we ever do is hope we won't ever do anything about it. I was so angry at him, I was mad that he wouldn't - couldn't - see why hope drives us, not dispossesses us. Except, when that question is asked, and I say "in ten years I will be graduated from college with a degree in creative writing, starting my own bookstore and finnishing up my first novel," I realize that hoping for this isn't going to make it happen.

So from here on out I will strive to be someone in the here and now, instead of hoping someday I will become something. Thanks for listening…

Peace, Love, and ME!

It's okay. We all die eventually.

And for your entertainment today, we have a lovely song for our readers...

Melt My Heart To Stone - Adele

Right under my feet is air made of bricks
That pulls me down turns me weak for you
I find myself repeating like a broken tune
And I’m forever excusing your intentions
And I give in to my pretendings
Which forgive you each time
Without me knowing
They melt my heart to stone

And I hear your words that I made up
You say my name like there could be an us
I best tidy up my head I’m the only one in love
I’m the only one in love

Each and every time I turn around to leave
I feel my heart begin to burst and bleed
So desperately I try to link it with my head
But instead I fall back to my knees
As you tear your way right through me
I forgive you once again
Without me knowing
You’ve burnt my heart to stone

And I hear your words that I made up
You say my name like there could be an us
I best tidy up my head I’m the only one in love
I’m the only one in love

Why do you steal my hand
Whenever I’m standing my own ground
You build me up, then leave me dead

Well I hear your words you made up
I say your name like there should be an us
I best tidy up my head I’m the only one in love
I’m the only one in love.


Story of my life. Right there folks, in lyrical form.


So I know most people don't - and by that I mean no one - read this blog of mine. They're more interested in what I post on my other blogs. And truth told that's the way I like it. I only post boring-one-step-two-step things on this particular spot and then obviously some poetry. I give people the link randomly, but mostly use my google blogger account to track other peoples blogs. Authors in particular. Weird that I'm saying all this when no one will actually read it.

Whatever. It's 3 in the morning. I'm going to bed.
Peace, Love and ME!

This is our Ungodly hour.

Some of my [favorite] poems. In order of newest to oldest. Starting with my latest...


[Untitled at this point]

Sun shines through my lace laden eyes.
I don’t know which to focus on anymore;
The white of it all or
The sin of it.

Pianos play somewhere in the back of my mind.
A memory too pretty to forget.
The repetition of each lyric insignificant to the melody,
Like the beholder to his beautiful one.

Stories become absolute.
Birds continue to flock together, but
The spider breaks her web,
And together we fall apart.

A piano plays somewhere in the back of my mind –
I let the memory fade anyway.
-Chantelle A.G.


Lonely

Lonely girl,
Crying in the night.
Her body rigid and cold,
Full of forgotten desires
All transgressed and transpired.
Shadows etch toward her.
Colder and paler still; her body frays
As the Ghosts come closer.
Are they coming to retrieve or to revive?
She doesn’t know and cannot decide.
Even in death she is unsatisfied.
-Chantelle A.G.


Bruised

Under the bruised night sky,
So black and blue,
I bleed from the wounds your words have left in me.
I find it queer how magnificent you look
In the moonlight.
Purity makes even the blackest of souls beautiful again.
Would it be a lie to say that I still love you?
Desire burns from my head to my toes.
Looking to the stars I plead:
Make this pain go away.
And once again your words are in my head;
Pathetic, you say, weak.
Blood trickles from my eye,
Salty and warm as I literally cry my heart out.
My breath comes shaky and shallow;
A perfect synonym to these motives.
At last I wonder who will find the body?
Under the bruised night sky
So black and blue
I bleed from the wounds your words have left me.
­-Chantelle A.G.


No one

In world with no one
You cannot hate,
Yet never be loved.
You’ll never get angry,
Or ever get a hug.
You’ll never fail,
Yet never succeed;
You’re always trapped,
And always set free.
Because in world with no one:
There’s no one at all
Not even you and me.
-Chantelle A. G.


Background Noise

Everything keeps making noise.
It won’t stop.
It screams.
It yells.
It taunts.

Coming from behind:
It grabs and wraps me in its sound,
Echoing and blasting all around;
It slowly takes and breaks me.

It won’t stop.
It screams.
It yells.
It taunts.
Everything keeps making noise.

I try to catch it; to adjust the sound,
But I can’t reach the volume!

It screams.
It yells.
It taunts.
It won’t stop.
Everything behind me explodes with sound.

I try and try to turn it down,
But I can’t reach the past
I can’t reach that blast
Of noise,
That comes from behind.

Everything keeps making noise.
Everything keeps making noise.
-Chantelle A.G.

Oh my. My. My list.

Someday…

• People will be able to find pieces of my work in the Norton Reader.
• I’ll no longer be sick.
• Expressing what I am really thinking will be much easier.
• My dad will be one of my closest friends.
• I’ll love myself.
• I won’t need to make people laugh to feel accepted.
• My smiles will reach my eyes again.
• I’ll stop obsessing about that nameless face that ruined my life.
• Four letter words will have meaning.
• I’ll tell you how much you hurt me.
• People will realize I’m not dramatic…I’m realistic.
• I’ll tell Train how much their lyrics keep me going.
• He’ll take back those words.
• I’ll be cool.
• I won’t continue to feel guilty.
• I’ll no longer fear being broken.
• I’ll let go of the past; both the good and the bad things.
• Art will come more naturally to me.
• The pain will go away.
• They’ll understand how much they screwed me up.
• I’ll behold myself.
• You’ll want me back.
• This list won’t matter.

Home

I grew up all over the place. Eighteen different houses, thirteen different towns, six different “states” and two different countries are where I call home. From day one my life was an adventure; and only once did I hate moving. Packing and unpacking was my norm and it’s what made me unique. I have always loved being able to tell people how many different places I’ve lived. The only problem I have with it is the misconception school counselors and shrinks seem to hold over my head.


According to parenting books a good mom creates a stable environment for her children. Who said stable had to be boring? In the second grade we had to fill out a report on where we were born and were we had lived since then. Besides me only two people had ever lived in more than one place. In fact, one kid was even born on his kitchen floor thanks to his immense impatience. Now with that information one might think “wow, what memories that house must hold,” but memories are held in a person’s heart and head, not a structure. I grew up with just as many sad and happy moments as Mr. Never-Leave-Home, only my moments were probably much more interesting and filled with all sorts of different places and people.


Perhaps I’m being a little abrasive; there is nothing wrong with staying in one place. There was even a time I thought my mother and I might just settle down for good. It was five years after her divorce with my father and she was remarrying. The man who, at that time, was my soon to be stepdad was a lot like my mother in the fact that he had grown up in a small town. They decided that after the wedding we would move back to his roots, also known as Bonner Springs, Kansas. There we found a two-story house that was perfect: three bedrooms, two baths, a fireplace, great school system, neighborhood full of kids, and smack dab on the curve of a cul-de-sac. It was a piece of cliché paradise, and since everything I’d lived in before was either an apartment or townhouse it would be the first actual house I was ever going to be able to call my own. So that is exactly what I did.


Like an animal I claimed my territory with pink paint and Winnie the Pooh wallpaper, which two years later turned to turquoise paint and Scooby Doo paper, and then once again to purple leopard print. I befriended all the neighborhood kids and took place in silly miscreant acts and illegal pond swimming. I cracked my elbow on a neighbor’s deck, sprained my ankle in my garage, fought over everything with Holly from two houses down, kicked a hole in my bedroom wall after a fight with my mom, and was madly in love with the kid across the street. Life was perfectly imperfect in that house, and then we were moving again. This time to a place called Oregon.


This is that one move I wasn’t ready for. The one move I cried as we drove off in the cab of our U-Haul covered wagon embarking on a new sort of Oregon Trail. It took me a year to feel comfortable in the new and wet town of Wilsonville. However my feet eventually webbed, I made friends and went to high school. I started freshmen year at Wilsonville High, and graduated from Wilsonville High; quite an accomplishment for my family, a total of five years in one school district. Not that we stayed in the same house ofcourse. We went from Jamaica Street to Vlahos Drive and almost to Sunny Side Lane, which I am very grateful, did not happen.


Now that high school is over there was naturally to be another move for me, but I decided to live with my mom and stepdad for awhile longer at home. I have no problem saying that word because I believe in everything that stands behind it. I know that the next move I make will be the first one I do on my own. Despite my reservations on living by myself I know that I will at least have my memories. Even if they are slightly erratic and seemingly unstable, they are still mine and that’s what makes them ultimately my home. It’s true that home is where the heart is, and while I am saying that I might as well add that there is no place like it and it is doubly sweet.

Wish You Were Here...(wrote it awhile ago, just now publishing it)

I just got my new laptop. I love it. It is a Toshiba and it rocks. It’s a dark blue in some lighting and a black in others. It has a huge screen and is really easy to use. Plus it was all under 500 dollars. Yay for money saving.

Besides that, I have had lot on my mind for the last few hours or so. I couldn’t even read. My head is like a bunch of nothing. It’s all rambled together. Sometimes I just want to scream. Scream so loud that the entire world can hear me. That it makes my face turn red and then purple and then blue. I want my voice to go hoarse from all that screaming. And then I want to be able to stop. Stop screaming and feel better. That’s what I want.

If only it were that simple. It’s not.

My other aunt from my dad’s side contacted me. She wants me to go and visit them sometime. That’s great right? I would love to get to know them. And then, I think, why is it that my aunts can want a relationship with me, and my dad doesn’t? Ugh. I hate this. I hate feeling like ‘daddy’s little defect’. I always wonder what things would be like if he was still in my life. Would I be able to write the way I do? Is it the pain that he brings me that gives me my talent? I probably wouldn’t be chubby. In fact, I would probably be thin and beautiful. Like my stepsisters. They are so gorgeous. Dad has this odd fixation with size. I remember that from that time I stayed with him in second grade. But, would I be a virgin then? Would my morals have disappeared along with my baby fat? I can’t help but ask if I am the way I am because I am his daughter, or because he gave up that responsibility?

What is worse than asking myself that question? Knowing the answer. Knowing the answer hurts more than I can even pretend to explain. He didn’t want me. Doesn’t want me. Sure, we have the occasional conversation every three years or so. I call him or he calls me, and then we play phone tag for three weeks before we just give up. That’s my relationship with my dad. It’s peachy.

I will never forget that night in Canada with him when I was seven. I had gone to stay with them for two weeks, and we were taking a road trip. Going to different friends of his houses and stuff, one night a whole bunch of us where sleeping on the basement floor at one of the stops. There was a wedding and a lot of people were in town camped out throughout the place. It was the first night that I wasn’t crying from homesickness. I think it was because it was like a slumber party. I always did better with a group of people then with the just one on one when it came to sleepovers; more people to comfort me or something. Anyways, my dad and I were the only ones still awake and he was talking to me about Galen, my (at the time) soon to be stepdad. I don’t remember all of what was said, but I remember him telling me that it was okay to accept him as my father. That it wouldn’t hurt his feelings if I chose to call Galen “Dad”. I didn’t really get it at the time. It took a long time for the real effect of that to sink in. My dad was giving me up. You know, when the beautiful bride walks down the aisle on her wedding day, and the father gives up his daughter’s hand for marriage? Well, my dad was doing that, only it wasn’t for my wedding, it was for my moms.

Even though I get what all that that conversation meant, I still don’t get why. Why would he do that? Did he think I wasn’t going to need him anymore? I don’t understand. I wanted to crawl into his lap so many times throughout my childhood, and wasn’t able to, and now, at 18 I still want to. But worse than that, at 18 I carry anger so intense that I don’t even understand it. I should not be angry at him, should I?

See, I know the answer to that question too. Yes, I may have a right to be angry, but sooner or later I need to let it go. And preferably sooner. Only I have been trying to for so long, and I don’t know how. How do I get over something like this? It wasn’t like he stole my favorite crayon in Kindergarten, he stole my childhood. At least that’s what it feels like. Maybe he isn’t the one who took it. Maybe I just never let myself have one. All I know is that I grew up way to fast. I didn’t get to have fun, the way I should have. In the back of my mind, all day EVERY DAY was his face. A made up face, because I still don’t know exactly what he looks like.

I blame him. I think that is the first time I have admitted that. I freaking blame him.

I’m angry at him. I am hurt. I am confused. But mostly, I am just sad. Depressed. I want to know how to fix all this. And I just don’t think that it’s fixable, not at this point anyway. I don’t seem to have the right parts to do the proper mechanics.
Ugh. It’s just so…complex. So layered; full of too many different emotions. I really have no idea how I am supposed to deal with all these feelings