Day 1: Be the guardian of your own solitude

I tell you that I have a long way to go before I am—where one begins….

You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

Resolve to be always beginning—to be a beginner!

-Rilke

Reusing Rilke.  His words always seem to resonate with me. Just can’t get enough of using his letters to a young poet.  The last time I used his words concerning being patient with things unsolved in my heart was when I was mind blown by India and being overstimulated in Mumbai.  A maximum city can do that.  Who knew a broken heart would send his words tumbling down the rabbit hole on to the plaster that would bandage the cracks of the organ I didn’t guard.

Eep

Eep

I know it will take time to mourn and heal, and today is Day 1 even if it really isn’t.  I bike to  and from school these days to change my morning routine.  Twenty more days to break an old habit and start a brand new one.  Recovery is expensive and is a pain in the butt.

Rehab. It's not about the bike

Rehab. It’s not about the bike

I am looking forward to my future self  thanking  me for doing this.  That’s the next step. Right now, my present self is really sorry. Sorry to my cracked and beaten heart.

Anyway, two things made me smile today though, Bishop’s villanelle and a song Yason sent me “Since I Left You” by The Avalanches.   Here they are and here goes…

One Art

BY ELIZABETH BISHOP
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

 

 

Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art” from The Complete Poems 1926-1979. Copyright © 1979, 1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Reprinted with the permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC.
Source: The Complete Poems 1926-1979 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983)

grateful slice:  making a hard decision and sticking to it

12 things I am grateful for today

“…please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven’t rather gone right through you. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad. So you mustn’t be frightened if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall.”

-Rainer Maria Rilke

Yup.  It’s official.  I have the blues.  And as much as I like blue, I do not like feeling it.  Sometimes, it is okay (read: Rilke’s lines to a young poet).  To ride the sadness and embrace the empty – it can be fodder for our art, teachers of empathy, allow us to honor what makes us vulnerable and lonely –  but misery is also overrated and once the spiraling begins, what started as a shallow hole  you can easily step out of, can deepen into a dark, abandoned well with stagnant water and fetid aromas.  Sitting there awhile allows you to remember never wanting to end up there unnecessarily again and after wondering how you got there in the first place, the clamor to get out claws at your soul.   How did I get here?  Well, I’ve been thinking too deeply. Feeling too much. Overanalyzing to a degree that no longer feels healthy to me. Taking myself, my thoughts, my emotions way too seriously.  Focusing too much on what is making me unhappy rather than gazing at what makes my life grand.  Because it is a grand life.  I seem to have lost my bearings about this and want my compass back.  So yeah. I need to get out of here. And quick. Because  I don’t want to get used to feeling wet, cold and in the dark any longer.  I don’t want to get comfortable in this despair.  I don’t want it to define me.   I want to stop asking why? for now and just emerge from this familiar sorrow and back into the light.  I have to pull myself out of this weird funk.  I’ve done it before. I can do it again. Today.  I’m feeling a little better already.

What usually works for someone like me  is to write and pray.  I don’t really see the two as separate anymore. Most of the time, when I am writing and pouring my heart out, I am also reaching out to G.  Surrendering what is inside me and asking for some assistance.  There’s the difference between scratching the walls until my nails bleed climbing and eventually crawling out of the well, to asking for and receiving help with the pulley. The former relying on my own feeble strength; the latter, a ticket to a less painful, more graceful exit.  On my own, I reach the light wet, angry and exhausted.  With G, I emerge with more peace, less struggle and a fluffy towel waiting for me.

So yes, today, I write and pray with my heart on my sleeve.  I don’t want to feel sad anymore.  I don’t want to feel bad anymore.  I don’t want to be in the well any longer.  I want to bask in the light that sits on my skin, warm and life giving.   To do that, I refuse to focus on what’s making my heart ill.  Instead, I want to remember and lean on what makes it full. So here goes…12 things I am extremely grateful for today, in no particular order.

Grateful girl

Grateful girl

1. God who is faithful, unchanging and a fulfiller of promises.

2. I am alive and healthy and have the ability to show love, choose my own perspectives, share ideas and live with freedom.

3.  My family is safe, intact, happy and complete.

4.  I have a dream job that I worked hard for and deserve.  I collaborate with inspired, interesting, intense, hard working people who believe in me and who teach me something everyday.  I am surrounded by kids who push me to teach, learn, do and be better.  I earn enough to be able to save, travel, enjoy life’s little pleasures without worrying about it too much.  I am financially independent, living on my own and fully capable of making a home that’s lovely to retreat to everyday.

5.  I am surrounded by amazing people who offer  consistent love and support.  Friends who accept me and who allow me to show love back.  Friends who tell the truth, who will defend, who will protect and share what makes them happy and what makes them scared.  Friends who listen, who will sit me when I am sad but also not enable destructive behavior.  Friends who show up. Friends who I can count on and who I trust can count on me too.

6. I have a fundamental trust in the world, people, the future and God.  I know things happen for a reason and that eventually, everything works out for the best.

7.   Even if it feels elusive right now, I know I have had joy in huge doses, in inexplicable levels and will have it again. I am grateful today for knowing and being intimate with joy and it’s just a matter of time and perspective that we will be one again.

8.  Words upon beautiful words stacked against each other to create and negotiate meaning, give comfort, keep us company, enlighten, humble  and leave us thinking, longing, wanting more.  I am grateful for books today.

9.  Images that speak to me and allow me to share my worldview in a simple but powerful way.   Photography always saves the day.  Thank you, nikon, iPhone5, instagram and Flickr.

10. Even if it hurts sometimes, I am grateful for truth and honesty and facing everything that makes our world great and broken.

11. From art, to music, to nature, to material things that make us stop for a minute and appreciate details, design and composition, to the mundane and everyday, beauty is everywhere. I honor and celebrate  it today.

12. Finally, I am grateful for love, the shark included. That it has found me. That I have found it.  That I am learning. That it pushes me to want to be better. To always be the best version of myself.

I know this is just the beginning.  That the funk I allowed to fester will take awhile to slink away , shrink and disappear but this is a good start.  I want my heart of gratitude and love back.  I miss it.

I miss me.

 

 ”Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”

-Rainer Maria Rilke

grateful slice:  deciding to be happy

I remember you

Ah, there you are.

I remember you.

I see you.  Past your swollen, bloodshot eyes and your despair, I see you.  Where have you been hiding?  Wait. Let me guess. Under a pile of papers well, in this case, google documents, am I right?  I knew it.  Come, sit and write with me for awhile.  It’s been a long time coming, this post. I agree the rain is not helping.  But welcome back. You look like hell but I know you are glad to feel your limbs, your face, your fingers typing again.  It’s been too long.  So tell me, what’s up? How have you been?

Displaced

Displaced

I see.

You feel displaced, misplaced, and out of sorts, like a bathtub in the middle of an arabica farm. Hhhmm…how in the world did you end up here, like this?  Spent. Barely breathing. Lost. Repentant.

I have an idea…

This happens when you’re not paying attention. When you work too much. When you tunnel vision and ignore the best parts of you, the people you love, the people who love you, those who matter most, things that make you happy and whole.  When you don’t listen to the throbbing on your right temple, which makes you unkind. The exact same one you now have from weeping all day.  The throbbing that tells you stop. Tells you take a break.  Look around. To see who you are loving? Hurting? Neglecting? Nurturing? Whose hand do you have to/need to hold right then and there?  Even in the dark, it’s good to reach for it. To let him know, you are still there. And there for him.  Completely.  Even if it’s lifeless from the waiting and the frustration. Hold it. Hold it tight and don’t let go.  Because it’s the most important thing to you.  It’s the hand you were born to hold. It’s his hand that you were built for. Have been waiting patiently, expectantly for.  Don’t let go. If you’re lucky enough that it ever reaches for you again, don’t ever let it go.

It also happens when you don’t take pictures with your big camera, or pick up a pen or write a post about what you’re grateful for.  When you stay in the city too long. When you don’t commune with the ocean.  When you are not creating.  When  you don’t talk to family. The worst of it is when you can hear what he is saying but you don’t listen to the aching of his heart.  When all he wanted was love and all you could see was the hazy mist of your fatigue. The same fatigue that has put your relationship in the ringer.  The same one that beat the life out of  you and the most important thing to you. The exhaustion that’s been recently lifted leaving you with a desperate prayer and a remorseful heart.  Hurtful words  have escaped the darkest recesses of everything that makes you  broken and flawed, spoiled and selfish. And now you’re sorry. You yell this to the air in the silence of your apartment.  And the universe and  your neighbors now know just how sorry you are. You weep. Loudly. You did this to yourself, you know that right?  And now you are a bathtub in the middle of a coffee farm. Alone.

Then there are the old scripts.   It’s when you fall into old scripts that don’t serve you. That don’t belong to you anymore. That don’t define you. But you default into those spaces because they are familiar, which  in the end act as some sort of defibrillator that wakes you back up into this new reality.

CLEAR. thathumpthathump  your heart is beating again. Thumping evenly to the beat of this remembering.  Of a now that you can embrace because you are still alive.

This authentic now that you honor with instagram shots everyday because your heart is bursting with gratitude and joy.  This real life that tells  you every single moment that you don’t fit into that old mold anymore. That you’re new. That the you that you have fought hard for, prayed for, the part of you where you can offer something good, life giving, loving to everything and everyone, exists. The you you have to stop abandoning. Forgetting. The best you that can only come from a space of love and honesty and acceptance. The you that’s anchored by something bigger and greater than yourself.  Which has brought us here. Already a special space that you momentarily forgot you already had. Still have.  The one he recognized. The one He made.  The one you deserve. The one you and I remember today.

So yeah, I remember you.

Glad to have you back.  Even if you look like shit and feel like hell.

So what are you waiting for?  Go get your ice pack.  Place it on your tired eyes. The swelling will subside.  Your heart will heal as you learn from this. As you suck it up. As you grow up. You’ll learn to forgive yourself.  You’ll learn to be better.  You’ll  know how to love stronger, fiercer. You’ll keep praying because you know you can’t do this alone.  And we both know that, love and writing always save the day.

And your kids.  Don’t forget the 128 kids who need you to be solid and strong.

And his heart…listen to his heart as you place it next to yours.  Don’t ever lose sight of its beating again.

grateful slice:  remembering

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                      i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Blog2Learn: Mano a Mano

No better way to meet a person than to meet their mind first. – Clay Burell

It’s really interesting to watch a conversation grow. Especially when you take part in it midway; not at the very beginning or the tail end but right smack in the middle of the complicated, swirly marinade of people’s differing perspectives, questions, assertions, speculation, preconceived notions, hopes and dreams. It has been on the table for a while, the discourse on student blogging. From its value, relevance, usefulness and purpose, the idea of using blogging to learn has received varying responses, both encouraging and dismissive. Out there, die hard believers and skeptics alike roam the same pedagogical hallways, crossing paths as they agree to disagree.

Last Sept 11, UWCSEA had the opportunity to create a space for more people to engage in this exciting conversation mano a mano. With a panel of three made up of UWCSEA East’s Jabiz Raisdana, the renowned Clay Burell from Singapore American School and one of his History students, Hayden, a group of teachers, administrators, students and parents sat together in the Kishore Mahbubani Library at the UWCSEA East Campus and continued the conversation I feel lucky enough to have been part of.

Four generations of white rabbits: Jeff, Clay, Hayden and Jabiz

The hour and a half long discussion was peppered with personal stories, insights, testimonies, admiration for the great work people are doing to push blogging to learn forward and profound responses to thought provoking, and challenging questions from the audience and #blog2learn tweets. Questions about privacy, purpose, value, authenticity, audience, safety, how and where to begin, assessment and systems were some of the few plaguing people’s minds.

#Blog2Learn

In the end, here’s what most of us took away:

1. People’s blogging journeys usually begin with the pursuit of a “white rabbit.”  It’s a kind of indirect mentoring that takes place organically.  A younger Jabiz followed Clay for years before Jabiz learned to trust his own online voice.  Clay acknowledged Jeff Utecht, who was also in the room that day, as his white rabbit. Many people there looked toward Jabiz and thought or tweeted that he was theirs.  Well, you get the picture.  A lot of people I follow now followed someone else through the rabbit hole and have felt the same admiration, vulnerability, motivation and inspiration. And yes, the ripples are multiplying.  It’s an exciting leap of faith that has lead to amazing things happening.

2. Blogging is writing. And that means differently to different people. To Clay, it’s about rigor and preparing his students for university and the future. For Jabiz, it’s about giving his 15 year old self and other young people the space to feel safe to share what means a lot to them. Either way, it has been about a cultivation of voice, a discovering of self, and expression of ideas and creativity to an audience that’s out there. Victoria, a Gr 8 student from UWCSEA-East couldn’t have said it better in her student blog, “Recently I went to conference called “Blog to Learn”, where experienced bloggers would talk to people about how blogging could make education that much better. The conference was immensely interesting, and I felt that I gained a lot of knowledge about blogging. The most important message that I’ve gotten out of it was that to become a better blogger, you actually have to blog. This means, that you shouldn’t keep stalling or getting paranoid that somebody is a tremendously better blogger than you. Instead, you should be working to your upmost potential and possibly use that as motivation.”

3. Finally, the most amazing thing about blogging is the community building it enables. It doesn’t matter if it’s a class of 22 Grade 7 students reading a post on Sharks, a Middle School teacher in Singapore interested in the students’ blogs of a Robotics class in Bangkok, or a young blogger getting 27 comments from all over after posting this, the idea that people can authentically share, get immediate feedback, build relationships and cultivate conviction will keep that authentic conversation going. Discussions in the classroom will never be the same again. I believe when students find a way to carve a home in the online sphere, they expand and break down the four walls of any classroom.

What about you?  What questions are you asking about blogging to learn?  Where are you finding your answers?  Please, feel free to join the conversation.

To blog or not to blog, that is the question

More Student voices:

Blogging is like a giant piece of paper. Imagine. The paper goes on for as far as you can see in all directions, just a plain white sheet of paper. There is only tiny mark on it, right where you are standing. Your name.
In your hand, you realize that you’re holding a paint palette containing paints of every colour of the rainbow, thick and thin brushes, pens and crayons.Then you realize that this paper is yours. All yours. You can draw, paint, write, scribble, colour, decorate and splatter on your paper. You can rip it, stamp on it, stick it, flip it, tear it, poke it, cut it, and scrunch it up. You can get others to judge your paper, support you as you draw, and give you ideas. And the best part is that the paper will never ever run out.

When you look back after years of work on your paper, you realize how you drew what you loved, what you hated, what you wanted, what you felt, what you needed, what you had, where you were, what you were, when you were. You have made one beautiful piece of art that is unique and will always be unique. You have made yourself into art. Hazel, Gr 8

 
I really enjoy the blogging part of english as I find it my best and most fun way for me to expresses how I feel and what’s going on in my life. I think that all English classes should set up blogs because its just a site. A site that turns in to something immensely amazing and beautiful. But the most important thing about thing about blogs is that it come in an empty space I think. It’s like a sand box. You can build, houses, castle, dungeons, pyramids. You build from your background knowledge, you build from your experiences and you build about yourself that’s why I love blogging. It’s your sand box, let the building begin and so will I! – Kaymin, Gr 7
I love blogging now. I am not even sure if it is related to english. But I am loving it. It is like a journal, where you can share your thoughts, experiences, and ideas. It is a whole new world for me. I think that blogging is going to have a good future for me because later in my life, my teachers, my employers, my kids, will see this. – Dhruv, Gr 7
 
When I first found out that we were setting up blogs I cringed, I have had really bad experiences with blogging in the past but I realized that if you do it properly blogging isn’t all that bad. I have realized that you can share so many ideas whilst blogging. I have really found that it has helped with my writing, but really we have only scraped the surface of writing and the full extents of blogging. – George, Gr 8
With the introduction of blogs you’re allowed to go to the max and well show off your skills in English but still with some guidelines. With the ability to look at one another’s work you can inspire and share ideas of which could eventually finish the puzzle your work can be. From a good paragraph opener to a good finishing of a story or poem or any sort of English related work we do. As well as the ability of others to look at your work and you to look at others. I am not now just creating work of what seems useless to me besides gaining me a grade level at the end of the year and entertaining my teacher, instead I am creating something of which people around the world can view, family can view, teachers can view and class mates can view. - Blair, Gr 8

M.I.A.

Keeping Things Whole

By Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
Mark Strand, “Keeping Things Whole” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1979, 1980 by Mark Strand.  Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., a division of Random House, Inc.  Source: Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002)

Psssst.  So, how have you been? Alls well, I hope.

Erm, I’ve been busy, I guess. Moving. Here are some snaps of what I’ve been up to.

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Anyway, it’s a peaceful Saturday afternoon out here in muggy Singapore and life is pretty good.  My new spaces are happy places and work is extremely fulfilling and inspiring.  I have new friends who feel like old friends. And old friends I am seeing in a fresh light.  I am at peace. My heart is intact and I have my students on my mind.

I know I have managed to neglect this space for awhile now and that’s fine. It happens. These seasons of silence. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been living a life of gratitude.  It also doesn’t mean I haven’t been traversing the grid.   If you’d like to see where I have been spending most of my time online, you can check it out here (Meta).  It’s currently where I hang out these days.  Especially since, a huge part of my classroom involves all of my students blogging themselves.  Make sure you click on some of their sites in my classes’ bundles.  A lot of great ideas are coming out of these young minds. I am extremely thrilled to be part of their writing journeys as they build communities, develop their voices, and hone their convictions.

Like I said, it’s been a great first few months away from home.  I miss certain things about it but that’s a blog post for later.  For now, I need to decide what to do with this old home of mine.  I am thinking of revamping it, perhaps getting my own domain or something like that. I haven’t decided.  It has served me well but just like my geographical move, I am seriously thinking of an online uprooting as well.  Will you follow me to my new space if I move?

I hope you do.

grateful slice:  old and new spaces

Wait for it …

Day 1 of my summer writing workshop:  What kind of writer are you?

It’s true.

I am a collector and I hardly throw anything away.  Not things, vintage clothing, pieces of paper with scribbles on them, memories, letters, pictures, feelings, associations and connections.  I am a big believer of documentation, of writing everything down and  have been accused of compulsive capturing.  This sentimental side, the one that also houses the pack-rat gene, has been there ever since I could speak and then became more pronounced when I learned to write.  At some point, this compulsion to take everything down and remember every single detail of what I see and experience, I attributed to being a writer.  I figured I needed to remember it all, so I could always fill in spaces and gaps in whatever story, character, poem or essay I  come up with. I thought all these things will eventually make it to my future ‘book’ somehow (on what, I still don’t know)  so remembering meant material.  There was comfort in knowing I could retrieve something, anything, from wherever I stored ‘stuff’  because it was torture to forget.

But today, I am thinking that  it’s okay, sometimes, to put the camera down. To let go of the pen or the sticky keyboard and turn the computer off.  It’s okay, sometimes, to document experiences and epiphanies in the little cracks of our consciousness instead of hurriedly and clumsily on the page.  It’s  also okay at times to wait for inspiration, for the best moment, for the mind blowing muse, the worthy snap,  before spilling our guts onto a place where people will see them.  There IS beauty in silence and power in observation and withholding.  I honor that today.

It’s all good  anyway because the silence is temporary and from whatever writing and documentation hiatus, the compulsive capturer always emerges  with a new way of seeing; one that’s not so attached, harassed or desperate.

These past few weeks have been a blur.  I tried, many times, to sit down and write but felt overwhelmed instead. So many things were happening all at the same time.  I never knew where to begin.   I didn’t know how to back track. How to recall and record.

So,I let it go.  Because  I realized not writing something down does not always mean I will forget.

Anyway, amidst the blur of loving gestures, emotional goodbyes, surprise parties and special meals with loved ones, packing and sorting through stuff I never threw away, I found myself agreeing to facilitate a summer writing workshop after a good friend and parent requested I do. People thought I was crazy to agree with everything I still needed to fix and arrange prior to moving.  But I didn’t care. It felt like a gift, actually.  A nice chance to be surrounded by Beacon kids.  I thought it would be a wonderful way to ween and manage the separation anxiety.

pack rat

True enough, this is where I find refuge these days.  Twelve brave souls decided it was worth their time to spend eight two hour sessions with me and if they only knew what a treat it has been. To share and teach something I am passionate about. Without rubrics or TSCs or report card narratives. With nothing but the intention to get them started on their own writing journey. One I hope they will keep alive and nurture even after the eight sessions are over.

young writers at work

We are right smack in the middle of the workshop and so far, things are going well. Kids are excited. They are writing and writing and reading each others’ work. They are attempting interesting writing activities and have been blogging!  I couldn’t be happier.

writing workshop snack

Sigh.

In light of encouraging the twelve to start their own blogs and write and share as often as they can, here is a poem I have been meaning to post for months but never had the guts to.  I wrote it awhile back and showed it to one person (Joey Tandem aka Mr. Lapid) who helped me refine part of my controlling metaphor and one transition.  I felt pleased once we “fixed” it but quietly placed the piece on my desktop thinking there would be a better time to share it.

I guess, now is that time.

Tell me what you think.

die, douche bag (Photo taken by Chris Ramos @ the Morrissey concert)

Untitled

by Ms. P

It crawled inside her head

and lodged itself

quietly,

comfortably

in the deepest cavities

of her cerebral cortex.

She thought she was,

at this juncture,

 impervious to the leech;

didn’t think it would

bother her

ever again.

Yet,

there it sat

curled up

knotted,

vicious and

sinister

sucking the might

of her confidence

slowly eating away

at her lobes,

without her knowledge.

Nothing prepared her

for the pain

when it dug

its jagged teeth

on the soft tissue

surrounding her decisions

her opinions,

the grey matter of

her insights and

inclinations.

It drank the life out of

everything she believed was

real and important.

Worn out and weary

she wondered why

she could not hold her

heart in her hand,

the usual indicator

that she was in a safe place;

where there were no hidden agendas

or predators  lurking

 in her subconscious.

Until of course,

that very

same thought

alerted the little demon

hiding in her brain

that she finally,

 knew.

Knew

exactly

what

it

was

trying

to

do.

It uncurled and

quickly

the little bastard

slithered out

of her ear

moved on to her shoulder

on to her forearm

passed the tiny tiara

and sun tattoo

on her wrist

only to find its

way on her palm

where she

waited

until she could

close her fist

to squash

the little fiend

that tried to eat

a part of who she was

squish

die, douche bag!

Guts squirted

from the gaps

of her tight fist

She watched

the color return to her cheeks

as she unclenched

her pale yellow

hand

And you? What’s your  recent source of inspiration?

grateful slice:  my summer writing workshop and my 12 young writers