Love Poems in Hemp Notebooks

In the spirit of Valentines Day (a holiday I actually loathe to my core) I've decided to share a love poem. I wrote it during my week long poetry intensive at school. Before I wrote this poem, I hadn't written a decent poem since October.

About the Notebook:Now, before I post the actual poem, I have to talk about my notebook. I received it when I was 8 years old. My mom, sister and I were going on a trip to Florida to do a program called Teen Missions. A woman from the church we attended at the time gave us "going away" packages with food, disposable cameras, crayons, Mad Libs, and of course, notebooks. We each got one, however, I seem to be the only one who still has theirs. These notebooks are hand-made, recycled hemp paper (don't quote me on that) made by poor women in some other country. Sorry I can't remember the details, but it's been 8 years. I have terrible memory.

Thanks for your patience...

Sweet Spice

Her eyes

a brilliant green,

the fluffiest most crystalline

buds held within a gold speckled casing.

She is a goddess

a name suited to her fairness,

the most expensive spice

and a vibrant yellow.

Her breath

flavored and scented

like perfumed vanilla,

exuding from lips that

shine with dripping diamonds.

She is my confidant,

she is my personal goddess

with wings made from gold,

tattered from men and their false words.

Saffron,

my lovely spicy woman,

fragrant and elegant,

my personal goddess,

my radiant love,

how I dream to kiss you,

how I dream to place

your scented skin upon mine.

I will pick you up,

hold you close,

tell you comforting truths.

I will mend your wings,

make you forget the pain

inflicted by the man who

knew not how to treat you.

I dream of loving you,

I dream of caressing you.

But I cannot afford

your expensive spice. 

A Creation Theory

It must be said that I am a master bullshit artist before anything else is said. Trust me, it's relevant. On the first day of real classes this year, my science teacher asked us to write a creation theory we knew of. Being a master bullshit artist (I told you it was relevant) I decided to write an offbeat little joke theory of creation. However, instead of it being a silly story, it actually became good. It's amazing how a good story can come out of a fifteen minute free write. So, here it is, pulled from this year's "school notebook."



There was once a man named Heraldo Norstramus, who sat in a big, blank place for no time at all, because time had never started.
He was the only thing in all of nothingness, but somehow he felt that he also was nothing. Then, no day (because days did not yet exist) Heraldo Norstramus picked up his big black hands (for there was no color yet) and clapped them together. A sound was made. It was the first sound ever made.
Heraldo was so ecstatic about creating something in nothing-ness that he tried all sorts of different things. He made many bizarre noises. He grabbed the edges of nothingness and weaved it into a blanket. He had created something out of nothing.
That Not-Night, as Heraldo slept under his thick blanket of nothingness, he dreamed for the first time, (though time did not exist.) He dreamed of an orb of light, being circled by another orb composed of bright things he had never seen.
When he woke, his blanket of nothingness was no longer nothing. It was filled with all of the images from his dream.
So Heraldo went about reconstructing the blanket. He folded the green and blue circle into an orb, and thus the world was created. Heraldo began to think of spectacular creatures. The images flowed from his brain into the depths of the cloth of nothing turned something. He named it Earth. And when he stopped to gaze lovingly upon his creation, he saw that all of the beads of sweat had flown away from his skin into the nothingness, thus creating the universe.
Heraldo was so overjoyed by this miraculous sight that he began to glow with radiant, hot light. Every day he moves his creation, to see all the sides of it.

Badge of Writer's Pride

It was only a few years ago that I fully embraced my title as a writer. I used to say I was a singer, dancer, or an actor, which are all skills that I do not have.

I used to be told in school as a kid (and still to this day) that I was(am) exceptional at English. I always kind of shrugged it off and thanked myself for reading so many books as a kid. My fourth grade teacher wanted to put me in the gifted program because of my short stories I shared with her.

I started to realize I was a writer in my first year at a charter school. It was the sixth grade, and we wrote stories frequently. My teacher Mr. John was a natural born story teller, so he encouraged us to write. When our expedition (a semester long subject studied in all areas; math, science, english etc.) was about hunter gatherers, we compiled a class anthology of stories in the perspective of a Native, or a Spaniard. Though my story was historically inaccurate, I got a nice big four on it. (A four is like an A plus in a charter school. They grade by a rubric)

I wrote two other exceptional stories that year. One was about a haunted castle in Scotland (i think) called Los Dukes, and the other about a tsunami victim from the 2004 Southeast Asia tsunami. My teacher actually made himself a personal copy to use as a demonstration for kids in the future.

I began to feel cultivated. Like someone had seen my little plot of soil and decided to weed it, and seed it. And during my middle school years, I started to grow. I started taking poetry classes with a locally famous poet, Judyth Hill. She taught me everything I know about poetry. I still have my 8th grade poetry anthology. The best poetry I ever produced came around when I worked with her.

I finally embraced that I was a writer two summers ago, when I started my first novel. It was one of those random ideas you get while sitting down to pee, and I wrote it down as soon as I could. I had the basic idea, but not the starting words. And then it came. I wasn't expecting to get anywhere with it. After I had started writing poetry, I couldn't write stories like I used to. But it went somewhere. I ended up writing 180 pages. For the record, this novel never made it. I got another random inspiration in the shower one morning, which ended up being my new child.

Now, instead of distracting myself with fantasies of becoming a princess, ballerina, actress, rockstar, popstar, dancer, and model, I know I'm a writer. My goal in life is to win a Nobel Prize for writing, (dream big, right?) or at the very least, publish my novel.

Why am I here?

Over the last week, my mom has been raving continuously about her new blog. She found inspiration in the movie Julie & Julia, before then finding the book.
Over the past few days, she kept asking me (quite seriously) to make a blog.
"Mom, I already have a myspace, I think that's good enough," I argued, before then realizing that myspace is a tool used mainly by horny teenaged boys to "ask out" girls, and for horny teenaged girls to show themselves however they so choose. The population of competent, literate people, who actually feel the need to read a blog is a very small one on myspace. So, I decided to create a blogger acount, and voila! here I am.
I was backseat surfing Blogger last night, over my mother's shoulder, and noticed that most blogs on this site have a set theme, or way of writing, or topic it sticks to. I refuse to do that. Life is a random thing, and I do not intend to write three stanza poems on my views of the night sky on a daily basis.
Instead, I plan for this blog to be a concoction of the best goddamned literary stew you ever have devoured with your brain cells. I'll throw in some poems from time to time, short stories that may, or may not pertain to my regular life, rants, insights to my thought process, and maybe even a sentence on my views of World War II.